Everything Parents Should Know About AI Going Into the School Year

AI is not only something individual students are bringing into school on their own. Schools and teachers are beginning to use AI for instruction, lesson planning, tutoring, feedback, administrative work, student support, and more.

That means AI may be affecting your child’s school experience even if your child is not personally opening ChatGPT.

Schools and policymakers are increasingly treating AI as both a learning tool and a literacy issue. The U.S. Department of Education has described responsible uses such as AI-enhanced tutoring, instructional materials, pathway advising, and teaching students appropriate AI use. UNESCO has also emphasized that AI systems should preserve human agency, ethics, and critical thinking rather than simply automate schoolwork.

Teachers are using AI

RAND found that in 2025, 54% of students and 53% of English language arts, math, and science teachers said they used AI for school.

Many teachers use AI to:

• Draft lesson plans and create worksheets
• Generate quiz questions and practice problems
• Adapt reading passages by grade level
• Create examples, explanations, rubrics, or assignment ideas
• Give feedback and support differentiated instruction
• Save time on administrative tasks and draft parent emails
• Help students practice specific skills

Many of these uses can be helpful. By using AI for tedious tasks, teachers can spend more time directly helping students. For example, they might use it to adapt reading passages for different levels, create practice questions and rubrics, draft parent emails, or organize lesson materials. However, AI can also be misused or produce inaccurate information. Parents should know that many teachers are already using it for parts of their teaching and administrative work.

Schools are adopting AI faster than they are teaching it

This is one of the most important points for parents.

RAND found that even though AI use was already common among students and teachers, only 35% of district leaders said they provided students with AI training. More than 80% of students said teachers had not explicitly taught them how to use AI for schoolwork, and only 45% of principals reported having school or district guidance on AI use.

In other words, many schools are using, discussing, or reacting to AI before they have fully taught students how to use it responsibly.

Teacher training is growing, but unevenly

Schools are still catching up, and the newest data shows why. In a 2026 NPR/Ipsos poll, only 44% of K–12 teachers said their school provided professional development or training on AI. Just 33% said their school had a formal policy for student AI use, while 52% said their school had not offered guidance or they were not sure what the guidance was.

School policies may vary by class

One confusing reality for families is that AI rules may not be the same in every classroom. One teacher may allow AI for brainstorming but not drafting. Another may ban AI entirely. Another may require students to cite AI use. Another may allow AI for studying but not for graded assignments.

This is why parents should not assume there is one universal school policy. Families should ask both the school and individual teachers what is allowed.

When parents hear that students are using AI, they may assume one thing: “They’re using ChatGPT to do their homework.” In reality, students are using AI in many different ways. Some are helpful, some are questionable, and others are deeply concerning.

For school, students may use AI as a search engine, tutor, summarizer, writing assistant, brainstorming partner, or study tool. But AI use extends far beyond academics. Teens are also using it for entertainment, creating images and videos, following the news, casual conversation, and emotional support. Of particular concern is the growing number of young people using AI companions as a substitute for real friendships and human interaction.

According to the Pew Research Center, 57% of U.S. teens have used chatbots to search for information, 54% for help with schoolwork, 47% for entertainment, 16% for casual conversations, and 12% for emotional support or advice.

What this means for parents

Parents should not only ask, “Are you using ChatGPT?” A better question is: “What are you using AI for?”

That opens the door to a more meaningful conversation. Using AI to quiz vocabulary or explain a math mistake is very different from using it to write an essay or complete an entire assignment. More importantly, using AI as a study tool is very different from relying on it as a companion or friend.

The key question is whether AI is helping a student learn, think, and grow, or replacing the thinking, effort, and human relationships they need to develop.

How much schoolwork are students using it for?

Pew found that one in ten teens say chatbots help with all or most of their schoolwork. Another 21% say chatbots help with some of their schoolwork, and 23% say they help with a little.

Parents may not realize how common this already is

There is also a gap between teen behavior and parent perception. Pew reported that while about half of parents say their teen uses chatbots, 64% of teens themselves report using them.

That means many parents are already parenting in an AI environment, even if they do not feel ready for it.

AI can be useful, but it can also sound confident when it is wrong, encourage shortcuts, and collect more personal information than a child realizes. There is also another huge question beneath the practical risks: What view of the human person is this tool quietly teaching?

A chatbot does not share your family’s moral framework

Mainstream chatbots are designed to be broadly agreeable and helpful, not to form a child according to a particular family’s faith, conscience, or understanding of human dignity. Their answers may treat questions about truth, sexuality, relationships, authority, suffering, or faith as matters of personal preference. A response can sound compassionate while still presenting a vision of freedom or happiness that is different from what a Catholic family believes.

This does not mean every answer is intentionally hostile to faith. It means parents should not mistake a fluent answer for moral wisdom. A chatbot is not a parent, teacher, mentor, priest, or trustworthy friend. It cannot take responsibility for the formation of a child’s conscience.

AI can become a substitute for thinking

Because a chatbot can answer almost instantly, children may begin to hand over the parts of learning that require patience: forming a question, wrestling with a difficult idea, making a judgment, or putting something into their own words. The tool may feel helpful while quietly reducing the effort that builds understanding and confidence.

Overreliance can look like asking AI to choose the best idea, write the first draft, solve every difficult step, summarize every reading, or decide what to believe. Healthy use should leave a child more capable of thinking independently. If the child cannot explain the answer without the chatbot, the tool has probably replaced more learning than it supported.

Important questions deserve human accompaniment

Research in the report found that some teens already use chatbots for emotional support or advice. A child may ask a bot about loneliness, sex, identity, family conflict, guilt, illness, or whether life is worth living because the tool is available at midnight and feels private. Parents often cannot see the full conversation, what the bot said earlier, or how the exchange shaped what their child believes.

When a question touches faith, safety, sexuality, mental health, or a serious decision, the answer should lead a child toward a trusted adult and real community, not deeper dependence on a private machine conversation.

Transparency matters because AI is a black box

AI often speaks in a smooth, confident voice, as though it knows the answer with complete certainty. But families usually cannot see where a particular answer came from, which sources shaped it, what information was left out, or what assumptions about truth and morality are built into the system. A fluent response is not the same thing as a transparent or trustworthy one.

Parents also may not know what their children are asking or how the tool is responding. Children can encounter AI through search, school accounts, writing tools, social apps, and companion products, and many services make it easy to turn on a private or incognito mode. That can remove conversations from visible history without changing the fact that the child is receiving advice, explanations, images, or moral messages from the system.

Transparency should be a family expectation, not an afterthought: know which tools are being used, review settings together, ask what questions the child is bringing to AI, and agree that private mode is not a way to hide important or safety-related conversations from parents.

Parents do not need to become AI experts overnight. They need a short family plan that is specific enough to follow on an ordinary school night.

Set an age boundary

Our baseline recommendation is that children under 13 should not use generative AI. Write your family rule down, decide what requires parent permission, and revisit it as your child matures. It is also becoming harder to avoid AI completely: search engines may place an AI-generated answer above ordinary results, and children may encounter AI inside school software or writing tools. Explain that seeing an AI answer is not the same as being allowed to start an AI conversation independently.

Make transparency the non-negotiable

No filter can guarantee that a model will never hallucinate, be manipulated by a jailbreak, or produce something inappropriate. Because prevention is imperfect, parents need visibility into use.

For older children, agree that AI use happens on a parent-linked account where available, private mode is not used to hide important conversations, and conversations are reviewed together once a week. Keep a shared list of the tools your child uses, check their safety settings, and ask to see a conversation whenever the topic involves faith, health, sexuality, safety, or a major decision.

For families who want a shared view of that activity, Acutis Family can help parents see what their children are saying to AI, making transparency easier to practice in everyday life.

Use AI intentionally

Before every AI session, have your teen write the purpose on a sticky note or in a shared note. This turns an invisible habit into a deliberate choice.

• Write: “I am using AI to…” before opening the tool.
• Choose an approved purpose, such as explaining a concept, practicing, brainstorming, or getting feedback.
• Do not use it to write a final assignment, make a personal decision, replace prayer or counsel, or act as a secret friend.
• When finished, write one sentence about what you learned and what you verified independently.

Keep humans in the loop

Make a list of the people your child can ask instead: a parent, teacher, pastor, counselor, doctor, or another trusted adult. For questions about faith, morality, health, sexuality, safety, relationships, or major decisions, require a human conversation before acting on an AI answer.