The family guide to AI at school. Start here.

Most of the tools arriving in classrooms are language models. They were built by reading a very large amount of text and learning what tends to come next. That is why they can explain a hard idea in two sentences, and why they can also state something false in a calm, sure voice: they are finishing a pattern, not checking a fact.

So two things are true at once. These tools can help a student learn, and they cannot be trusted on their own. Your job is not to become a technology expert. It is to ask a few plain questions and stay the one who decides.

A helper, not a boss. That is the whole idea in five words.

Not everything called AI is the same thing, and the right questions change with the type.

• Chat tutors

  Your student types a question and gets an explanation. Helpful for practice, and able to write the answer for them.

• Writing helpers

  Suggests, rewrites, or drafts text. The line between a suggestion and someone else's essay is the thing to watch.

• Adaptive practice

  Maths and reading programs that adjust difficulty. Usually no open chat, so they collect less and surprise you less.

• Research and search

  Answers questions with sources. Check that the sources are real: models sometimes point to pages that do not exist.

• Reading and speech tools

  Reads aloud, transcribes, or checks pronunciation. Often a support a student needs, so ask before you assume.

• Teacher-side tools

  Grading help and lesson planning. Your student's work may pass through them without your student ever touching the tool.

Not sure which one you are looking at? Is it AI? How to spot it in your student's apps walks through the signs in 30 seconds.

Four questions settle most of what a parent needs to know. Tick them off as you get answers, from a permission slip card, a teacher, or the school office.

If your district sends you a Kinsent AI permission slip, the first and fourth questions are answered on the card itself: the section headed who can see what your student types, and the section headed our privacy agreement with the company.

The chat is only part of it. A tool can also hold account details, device details, how often and how long your student used it, and anything your student uploaded, like a photo of a worksheet.

Who can read it varies: sometimes the teacher and family, sometimes staff at the company, sometimes anyone with a legal request. A district that has signed a student data privacy agreement with the company has written down what is and is not allowed.

Go deeper here: What an AI tool can learn about your student.

One note on how Kinsent AI works: districts keep student names. Kinsent creates random IDs and only the school knows which student each one belongs to, so a family's identity stays with the school.

Short and regular beats long and rare. Two minutes at pickup is worth more than a lecture on Saturday.

And when homework is the flashpoint: Homework, AI and honesty.

Choosing not yet is a normal answer, not a problem to solve. Ask your school what comparable assignment is available without the AI tool. State requirements differ, and our state rules map separates current laws, adopted rules and proposals with official sources.

Three things that keep it smooth:

1. Say what you are choosing and ask what the alternative looks like, so your student is not left empty handed in class.
2. Tell your student the reason in one sentence. Students handle a clear no far better than an unexplained one.
3. Know you can change your mind. A choice is a moment, not a contract, and you can change it from the same link.

Language model

A program trained on huge amounts of text that predicts what should come next. The engine behind most chat tools.

Generative AI

AI that produces new text, images, or audio rather than only sorting or scoring what already exists.

Prompt

The question or instruction your student types in. Wording changes the answer, which is a skill worth teaching.

Training data

The material a model learned from. It is why a tool can sound knowledgeable and still be out of date.

Made-up answer

What a model produces when it fills a gap with something plausible instead of something true. Teachers call this a hallucination.

Adaptive practice

Software that changes difficulty based on answers. Useful, and usually not a chat tool at all.

Opt-in

Nothing happens until a family says yes. Florida's approved rule will require this before a student directly uses an AI tool.

Student data privacy agreement

A contract between a district and a company about what the company may collect, keep, and never do with student information.

Policy version

The dated rules a district approved its tool list under. It tells you which decision your answer sits on.

Comparable alternative

The non-AI assignment a district offers a family who chooses not yet.

Three useful places from here, all free and all on this site.

• Start with the basics

  What AI actually is, in one page.

  Read it

• Do the 30 second check

  Is it AI? How to spot it in your student's apps.

  Read it

• Follow the week

  The Sunday Brief, one short email each week.

  Read it