Weekly Updates

Burbio School Tracker 10/14: "A Mechanic or Two"

Written by Dennis Roche | Oct 14, 2025 1:00:02 PM

1. Burbio's school board meeting minute database contains everything from policy trends to highly specific, contextual answers about district initiatives delivered through our Signals Tracker. In the chart below we look at AI-related references in board documents broken down by region for the 12-month period ending August 31: 

For the chart above, the West consists of California, Oregon and Washington; the Midwest is Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Minnesota; the Northeast is all states from Delaware and Pennsylvania through Maine; and the Southeast is Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.

It is worth noting that Texas school board meetings do generally cover less subject areas than the balance of the country, but the discrepancy in discussions about AI in the chart above is still quite pronounced.  

2. At the district level there is widespread use of committees to develop approaches to Artificial Intelligence. This week we use Burbio's Signals Tracker, which allows for highly specific prompting about district-level discussions, to profile some recent examples:

  • In Baldwin Park Unified School District, CA, the committee is led by the District CTO for Education Technology and Support, and they conducted a survey of teacher usage and needs, workforce development opportunities, student usage, AI risks, and more, in addition to developing the district's AI handbook. 
  • In Upper Arlington City School District, OH, the Deputy Superintendent plus the Chief Excellence and Engagement Officer presented to the board on behalf of the Generative AI committee "made up of administrators, teachers, students, and experts from the education field."  In addition to developing AI policies, the committee was involved in picking AI tools for use in the district over the coming school year. 
  • Pelham School District, NH, has an AI Pilot committee focused on professional development and integrating AI into instruction, and consisting of teachers from across all district schools and from a variety of grade levels.
  • In Baldwinsville Central School District, NY, the Assistant Superintendent for Instruction and Assessment leads the AI committee, which is conducting three pilot programs and updating the district's AI documentation. "AI is being used to streamline teacher workflow and incorporated into instruction," is among the updates. 
  • In Kingman Unified School District, AZ, the eight-member AI committee was expanded into a 32-member AI task force. "We have teachers, administrators, directors, paraeducators, and I believe we have a mechanic or two," reported the Director of IT to the board. The committee is working with a consulting company and running point on the roll out of AI tools in the district, with plans to involve students and community in the future. 

Regarding the mechanics mentioned in the report above, we note that AI is being used in everything from bus route planning to bus safety and maintenance.

3. Burbio's Signals Tracker provides summaries of key discussions for school board meetings and strategic plans, and scores the stage of discussion. A common area of inquiry is the stage of curriculum adoption by districts. Here are recent examples in the area of math:

  • Juneau School District, AK, reports that "Secondary math is piloting for classes in grades 7 through geometry." The district also mentions reviewing new Secondary ELA curriculum for instruction, plus curriculum reviews for music and PE. 
  • Portland Public Schools, ME, reports that a "new research and design of mathematics programming at the HS is in progress . . ."
  • West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan Area Schools, MN, has recently chosen math curriculum for elementary and middle school, but the high school is continuing "resource review, alignment, and professional development," while piloting one supplier. 
  • Newton Public Schools, MA, had a recent meeting featuring a "Math program update: Reviewed draft plans of pilot phases, implementation schedule, and curriculum adoption considerations, high-level discussion on multilevel classrooms and future of math program . . . "
  • Pleasanton Unified School District, CA,  has formed a math adoption committee for Math 6-8, Algebra, Geometry, and Algebra II.

4. Burbio has added RFPs to our existing datasets of state grants, school board meeting minutes, strategic plans, bonds, superintendent turnover, and more. RFPs are presented in a sortable dashboard by category and are updated daily. Below is a selection that appeared in the last week:
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