Developing Guidance and Guardrails In PSD

Developing Guidance and Guardrails In PSD

Superintendent Krestin Bahr and Chief Information Officer Kris Hagel presented this session to the AZ Superintendent Leadership Network on September 30, 2026. The talk traced how Peninsula School District's AI work grew from a small teacher cohort into district guidance, what the district learned when it looked at who had and had not been trained, how it is building its own tools to keep AI use in line with what it believes about instruction, and the Open Adaptive District.

Key Takeaways:

• Teachers drove the work first: Professional learning moved from a 2019 Metaverse session ("not everything is a winner") to an ISTE AI course cohort in June 2022, AI action research with teachers in January 2023, and AI as a district focus in September 2023. The work went from central office straight to teachers, starting with ELA, and teacher voice shaped the district's guidance, which then informed other districts' and the state's.
• Principals were left out, and it showed: Principals were aware of the early work but not looped in, and the district said it is paying for that now. In three years they had three or four one-hour trainings and one five-hour session, even though the district expects them to be its instructional leaders.
• Clerical staff saw large productivity gains: Time spent training clerical staff paid off, and they now have monthly two-hour trainings through the 2025-2026 school year.
• Students are learning without us: Hour-long conversations with about 125 high school students found they know more about AI than adults expect, learn about it from TikTok, Discord, Reddit and the lunch table, and nearly all use it personally and for schoolwork. A solid majority do not like teachers grading their work with AI, though they consider their own use fine. They voiced existential dread about what AI will do to society and were mixed on AI for companionship or mental health.
• Buying a tool will not solve the problem: The first "hot take" was that purchasing an AI tool does not fix anything on its own. Leaders should ask whether their tools only reduce tasks or help people grow, and whether what staff produce with them matches what the district believes about good instruction.
• We are not ready for this level of change: The second "hot take" was that schools are not ready for the change this moment requires. Teachers in the action research group are starting to feel overwhelmed, and comfort with ambiguity is becoming the critical skill.

Actionable Insights:

• Train principals deliberately: For 2025-2026, PSD principals have monthly training organized around four buckets: AI to improve personal practice, teaching with AI for teacher tasks, teaching with AI for learning outcomes, and teaching about AI (AI literacy).
• Set clear expectations: PSD's expectations for the year are that students using AI is not cheating, and that every staff member should find ways to use AI in their work.
• Build tools that carry your beliefs: AI Studio, PSD's open-source platform running in its private AWS cloud, lets the district build tools to fit its own goals. When principals were using AI to offload evaluations, PSD built an assistant that does not evaluate teachers but helps code observations, organize notes, spot missing elements and suggest coaching conversations. To keep teachers on high-quality instructional materials, a tool uses the curriculum's rubrics to draft student feedback as a starting point. To stop prompts producing generic resources, PSD rewrites popular prompts against its Instructional Essentials Playbook before sharing them with teachers.
• Talk with your teams now: Staff, students and parents are already using AI. The session asked superintendents to discuss what their own staff and students are doing and how they hear about it, rather than waiting and cleaning up problems later.

Looking Ahead:

PSD's next step is the Open Adaptive District, supported by a Google and GSV fellowship: teams run six-week cycles to build something that improves a process in their own area, then publish what worked and what failed. The presenters noted that this year's seniors will graduate without systemwide teaching about AI, said districts have to move quickly, and asked others to share their own work, good or bad.