By Brett Roer, Founder & CEO of Amplify & Elevate Innovation
I was on AmpED to 11 with Jason B. Allen, National Director of Partnerships at the National Parents Union, and a number he shared stayed with me long after the episode ended. According to Common Sense Media research, seventy to eighty-four percent of students surveyed had used generative AI. Only sixteen to twenty percent of their parents believed their student ever had.
Let that sit for a second. The kids are on AI. The grown-ups in their lives, in many cases, do not know. Schools are being asked to develop AI policy and procurement decisions on top of that gap, and most of the rooms where those decisions get made do not have any parents in them.
If you are leading a school district right now, the most important AI decision you can make this month does not have anything to do with which tool you are about to buy. It has to do with who is sitting at the table when you make that decision.
The Question I Keep Asking District Leaders
When I sit down with superintendents and cabinet teams about their AI work, the question I keep coming back to is some version of this. Who in your community has been part of every conversation that brought you to where you are right now? And who has not?
Most of the time the answer is honest and uncomfortable. Leadership has been there. The technology team has been there. The instructional coaches and a few teachers have been there. Procurement has been there. Cabinet has been there. The board has been briefed.
Parents and families, as a rule, have not. Not because anyone is trying to exclude them, but because the meetings happen on Tuesdays at 10 a.m. and the agenda is set by people who do not think to invite them and the documents are written in language that is not designed for them to enter.
The consequence of that is not theoretical. It is the policy that gets adopted in the spring and quietly dies in the fall. It is the tool that gets purchased in August and stops being used by Thanksgiving. It is the AI guidance that the community never trusts because the community never built it.
The answer to your district’s AI challenge is not a better expert. It is a better table.
What Parents Are Actually Asking For
Jason and I spent a real chunk of the conversation on what parents are saying when they are given a structured way to say it. The themes are consistent across communities he polls, and they match what I hear in the listening sessions I run with districts.
Parents want balance. They want to see AI used as a real tool that helps their children excel academically, and they want their kids to have time away from screens for the social, emotional, physical part of being a human being. The two are not in tension. They are both things parents care about, and both need a hearing in the room where decisions get made.
Parents fear the tool replacing the person. Jason talked about how often parents worry that AI is going to replace Ms. Betty, the secretary at the front desk who has worked at the school for twenty years and knows every family by name. He is right that Ms. Betty is going to be needed for the next twenty years. He is also right that the worry is real and deserves to be answered, not dismissed.
Parents want safety on student data. When Jason asked what single question a parent should bring to their school board about AI, his answer was about data privacy. Are we keeping kids safe with these tools? Have we done our due diligence on the vendors? Is there a second or third party with access to student information that nobody has surfaced yet? Those are the questions district leaders should be ready to answer in plain language, on a Tuesday evening, in a room with parents who showed up because they care.
The Practical Move I Recommend to Districts
If I am sitting with a superintendent today and we are talking about how to bring parents into the AI conversation in a way that actually shapes decisions, the practical move I recommend looks something like this.
Before the next AI tool review on your calendar, hold a structured listening session with parents. Not a town hall. Not a presentation. A listening session, where the questions are theirs and the room is built to hear them. I use a protocol I built called Pass the Mic™ for this kind of work, because it surfaces every voice in under ten minutes and reflects the community’s wisdom back to them in real time. But the format matters less than the principle. Parents are not there to be informed. They are there to be heard.
The two questions I would put on the table for an AI session with parents are simple. If AI gets it right for our students, what does that look like? And what is your biggest concern, and what would make you feel more confident about how the district is moving forward?
Then, when you walk into your next procurement decision, you walk in with the room behind you. You know what the community values. You know what the community fears. You know which questions to push on the vendor that you would not have known to push on otherwise.
A Move Worth Borrowing From the Private Sector
One practice I have been telling district leaders about this year is performance-based contracting with AI vendors. It is normal in the private sector and is fully available to school districts. The principle is simple. The contract names the level of adoption, the level of satisfaction, and the kind of improvement the district expects the tool to produce. If the vendor does not deliver, there is no renewal.
Schools are allowed to raise the stakes on the people selling them tools. They are allowed to not settle for what is being offered in the first go-around. Parents, when they are in the room, ask the questions that lead naturally to this kind of contract structure. They want to know what we are paying for and what it is supposed to do for their child. Those are exactly the questions a district leader should be welcoming, not deflecting.
A First Move You Can Take This Month
If your district has been making AI decisions without parents in the room, the first move costs nothing and takes one calendar entry. Pick a date in the next thirty days. Invite a small group of parents and caretakers from across your community. Make the room about listening, not presenting. Use two questions and let the room answer them.
What you hear that evening is the foundation of every AI policy, every procurement decision, and every classroom rollout you are going to make for the next year. The community gets built before the work scales. That is the sequence that holds.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why should parents be included in school district AI decisions?
Parents are the people whose children live with the consequences of every AI tool and policy a district adopts. Including parents in the decision-making process from the start surfaces concerns and aspirations that would otherwise emerge as resistance after the fact. Districts that build their AI work with parents in the room get guidance that the community trusts and that survives the year. Districts that brief parents after the fact tend to get policies that quietly stop being followed.
How do you engage parents in school AI conversations?
The most effective approach I have found is a structured listening session, where the questions belong to the parents and the format is built to hear every voice in the room equally. I use a protocol called Pass the Mic™ for this work, but the principle holds in any well-facilitated format. Two questions work well for an AI session: if AI gets it right for our students, what does that look like, and what is your biggest concern? The conversation that follows becomes the foundation of the district’s AI guidance.
What questions should parents ask their school board about AI?
The most important question is about data and safety. Are the AI tools the district uses keeping student information protected? Has the district done its due diligence on each vendor, including any second or third parties with access to student data? Parents should also ask whether they have a meaningful seat at the table when the district is making AI decisions, not just being briefed after the fact.
How do school districts hold AI vendors accountable?
Districts are allowed to use performance-based contracts with AI vendors. The contract specifies the level of adoption, satisfaction, and the kind of improvement the district expects the tool to produce. If the vendor does not meet the bar, there is no renewal. This is normal in the private sector and fully available to schools. The questions parents naturally ask, about what we are paying for and what it should produce for their child, are the questions that lead to this kind of contract structure.
Bring Parents Into Your District’s AI Work
I partner with school districts on community AI guidance that starts with the people who will live with the decisions, including parents and families from the very first conversation.
If your district is ready to build AI policy that the community trusts, I would welcome the conversation: brett@aeieducation.org.
