Is AI the solution or the problem? Depends on who you ask.
The Santa Barbara Unified School District is locked in a battle over the future of AI in its classrooms, and the issue has erupted into a high-stakes tech drama that even ChatGPT may not be able to fix.
District administration recently formed an Artificial Intelligence Task Force, a move that upset some parents who felt like they were purposely excluded because of their concern about AI use in the classroom.
The Task Force had its first meeting last week, where Rob Cooper, the director of educational technology, cheer-led for AI in the classroom, making it clear that the technology is here to stay. But the district’s hugging of AI so quickly has parents uneasy about whether leaders are poised to manage the introduction of the technology—without harming students.
Dozens of parents recently showed up to a school board meeting, angry about the district’s device policy in the classroom, stating that students aren’t protected from inappropriate content. Some also say the district uses technology as a crutch rather than pencil-and-paper instruction and suggest that a moratorium be placed on AI use until everything is sorted out.
All of these moments have tangled the future of AI and technology in schools, and like most AI searches, it’s looking like it will take a few attempts to figure it all out.
“What’s the evidence that AI helps kids develop and succeed?” asked William McBride, a task force member. “We don’t want kids to be a test subject.”
Even Superintendent Hilda Maldonado has become infatuated with AI.
“The question isn’t whether AI will be part of education. The question is, who shapes it, and who gets to shape how it is used?”
That’s what Maldonado said in her remarks to participants at her first full meeting of the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, which took place a week ago.
To prove a point, seemingly, the superintendent admitted to using AI to generate those remarks.
“But what it didn’t do was to tell me what to say,” Maldonado said. “I told it what I wanted to say. And then I shaped it, and I asked questions, and I gave it feedback…So that is the point. I still have to know what I want to say.”
The speech represented another inflection point in the district’s efforts to keep up with the rapidly changing use of technology and its platforms in the classroom, which most recently has been AI.
Thursday night brought together nearly 50 concerned members of the community, parents, teachers, district administrators and differing perspectives of how AI can and should be brought to the classroom. The mood was both enthusiastic and wary.
Rob Cooper, the district’s director of educational technology, enthusiastically led Thursday night’s meeting.
“When I talk to other school districts in our county and some of the smaller school districts in our neighboring areas, what they are telling me is, ‘we are waiting to see what Santa Barbara does,’” Cooper said.
In addition to representing various backgrounds, task force members also represented a mix of attitudes toward AI and how the district’s been handling its entrance into the classroom.
At the beginning of the meeting, Cooper asked the task force members to talk among themselves about their feelings toward AI—are you skeptical? Optimistic? Unsure?
Ashley Ong, a computer science teacher at Dos Pueblos High School, said there are extremes on both sides of attitudes toward AI and that tech-savvy students can get around whatever guardrails are put up.
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Nick Burwell, who works as a software engineer for an AI company and has two children in the district, said he was skeptical because AI is being added into the mix of existing safety issues on the district-issued iPads.
Both Ong and Burwell were part of the procurement and data privacy focus group, one of four the task force divided into to create more specialized recommendations for the district’s AI framework. Other focus groups included professional learning plans and use, academic integrity and policy.
The goals of the AI Task Force are to create a framework for how AI is used in the classroom by drafting a series of recommendations based on the respective focus groups, with plans to draft a resolution in October to be voted on by the board in November.
Meeting participants on Thursday established the task force’s working norms and looked at California’s guidance for AI use in schools, AI guides for IT teams, AI literacy frameworks and other digital resources.
Toward the end, some task force members agreed that policy precedes everything and recommended looking into state and federal laws before drafting recommendations.
The task force plans to reconvene again in September.
For some parents, underlying the meeting were concerns bubbling to the surface over the district’s handling of AI in the classroom within their broader concern for safety.
It comes on the heels of a fiery school board meeting about the district’s oversight of iPad use in the classrooms and a few years after a grassroots effort led by parents to push the district to ban student cellphone use during school hours.
The current district policy on AI is broad and incorporated into the Student Use of Technology. It addresses “safe, responsible, and age-appropriate AI uses along with following current district policies addressing academic honesty, data privacy, nondiscrimination, and copyright.”
“The district sent employees guidance two years ago on how to use AI properly,” said Ed Zuchelli, the district spokesman. “However, technology moves fast. Since that time, we have seen use increase, requiring us to nimbly adapt and update our policy to the 2026 reality.”
Enter the AI Task Force, which was born out of the district’s tech use committee formed a few years ago to focus on cellphone use. The district split the committee into two temporary task forces—one focused on balanced learning and technology and the other on AI—which Zuchelli said were too extensive as topics to cover as one committee.
“We’re not here asking you to rubber-stamp a decision that’s already been made,” Maldonado said. “Every perspective here carries weight…AI does not do this work. You do.”
But some task force members feel like they are just a rubber-stamp.
Recently, some members on the task force have been particularly critical about the district’s governance over iPad use in the classrooms and, as a result, the piloting of AI use in some. At the last board meeting, some district parents stressed the need for accessible vendor agreements with platforms like ChatGPT that use student data as one example of their safety concerns on district-issued devices.
Underlying their frustration with the district’s handling of student safety and well-being with regards to technology and AI are the ways they feel like their concerns are truly being considered by the district.
Originally, Cooper put out an application process for the task force. Several parents who also work in technology and AI who’ve been vocal about the district’s mismanagement of tech safety—Ali Bjerke, Simon Bentley and Nick Burwell—were surprised to find out that they were rejected.
“It goes without saying that this was done intentionally and is cherry-picking people that will agree with his own personal agenda instead of people who work within this profession,” Bentley said in an email to the News-Press.
Bjerke and Bentley told the News-Press that they can’t help but wonder if the task force is just theater.
After Cooper sent out rejection notices to affected applicants, he seemingly reversed course by inviting anyone who wanted to join the task force. Bjerke, Bentley and Burwell were all at the meeting on Thursday.
Kathryn Birch, who leads the Goleta Parents for Tech Reform and was integral in getting a cellphone ban implemented in SBUSD, didn’t receive a rejection or acceptance letter. She also did not receive an invitation to the meeting, she told the News-Press, but she knew of its existence because she asked Cooper directly at the Balanced Learning and Technology task force meeting that happened two days prior.
When Birch mentioned this at the meeting, Cooper designated the issue as a “parking lot” topic to be discussed outside the meeting. Birch said there was never a follow-up from the district.
“I thought it was a totally inappropriate use for a parking lot,” Birch said. “I agree with the intent [of the task force], but what I would hope for is to have some resetting to reinstall the trust and leadership.”
Birch said she appreciates that the district is moving forward with this issue, but it boils down to the specific leadership leading the change. “We got the cellphone issue solved,” Birch said, and the district is moving the iPad safety issues forward positively.
“[We] have great relationships with most of the administration,” Birch said. “That’s why it’s disappointing with how the AI task force is being moved.”
Julianna Lozada is a Santa Barbara-based reporter. She previously wrote for Southern California News Group as well as the Beverly Hills Courier and Santa Clarita Valley Proclaimer. She holds dual degrees from Sciences Po Paris and Columbia University. More by Julianna Lozada • Santa Barbara News-Press
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