AI Governance Frameworks and Field Tools for K-12 Education

• Context and Challenge

  As emerging technologies, including deepfakes, began to surface in K-12 contexts, schools and districts were encountering real uncertainty about implications for student safety, instructional integrity, and institutional responsibility. Guidance was fragmented across legal, technical, and instructional domains, and there were few shared reference points for decision-making.

  At the same time, school-based professionals were increasingly fielding questions and concerns related to technology-driven incidents without clear system-level guidance. In the absence of clarity, responsibility often fell unevenly on individuals to interpret risks, respond to incidents, and assess new tools on their own.

• Key Decisions and Actions

  Opportunity Labs convened experts across K-12 education, law, and tech to create public and actionable resources. Key actions included:

  • Synthesizing instructional, legal, and technical perspectives on emerging technologies, including deepfakes, into clear, plain-language briefing materials for school contexts

  • Designing and analyzing a survey of school-based social workers to understand how emerging technology issues were appearing in practice, where uncertainty was highest, and what additional support might be needed

  • Convening and facilitating cross-functional roundtables with educators, school-based staff, policy experts, and technologists to surface concerns, compare perspectives, and build shared understanding

  • Developing procurement benchmarks, surfacing practical questions institutions could use to assess vendor claims, data practices, implementation burden, and long-term viability

  Across this work, the goal was to slow the conversation down enough for clearer thinking before districts adopted anything.

• Outcomes

  This work produced a policy framework, incident response guide, research agenda, and procurement benchmarks -- resources for school and district leaders navigating deepfake-related decisions without clear system-level guidance. A survey of school-based social workers surfaced where uncertainty was highest and what additional support practitioners most needed. The goal throughout was to give institutions something they could actually use, including clear reference points in a space where guidance was otherwise fragmented.

• Lessons Learned

  • In periods of rapid technological change, clarity and shared language are often more valuable than speed

  • When systems lack clarity, the burden of interpretation falls unevenly on individuals

  • Early questions about investment and procurement can shape how institutions approach new tools, even before formal decisions are made

• My Role

  Director, Opportunity Labs (2023–2025)

  I led strategy, design, and development of a national resource and policy hub for deepfake deterrence, prevention, and incident response in K-12 education, and producing the policy toolkit, research agenda, and incident response guide that came out of it. I led national research on AI adoption in schools, designing and administering surveys of district superintendents and school social workers and synthesizing the findings into guidance for state and city decision-makers and philanthropic investors. I helped develop Procurement Benchmarks for AI in K-12 Education and Strategic Investment Principles for Generative AI, and adapted that framework for school-based mental health contexts. I also supported national roundtables convening 50+ educators, policymakers, researchers, and technology developers, contributing to synthesis, interview design, and programming.