Burbio School Tracker 2/18: Skepticism & Optimization

1. Burbio’s Signals Tracker reads and summarizes millions of pages of district school board discussions, helping clients identify immediate selling opportunities. Given how quickly AI tools are evolving, we continually monitor school board conversations in this area. This week, we analyze thousands of district board meetings from the past 60 days to track the latest AI activity in K-12.

We start with points of discussion we hadn't seen raised earlier in the Fall. Here are some of examples of what we learned:

• Student skepticism: Reports of students discussing what "AI is doing to their brains," as well as the impact AI has on devaluing their own originally created work.
• Creation of dedicated "AI Integration" staff roles as districts realize AI implementation is too complex to be a "side-desk" for IT directors. Specialized roles such as AI Integration Coach and AI Coordinator have been created to address this issue.
• Operational optimization as districts experiment with AI outside the classroom. Examples include using AI to match students with vocational opportunities, and using AI-powered cameras to measure food waste and make appropriate menu adjustments.
• Teacher Evaluation and Feedback: Implementation of AI tools to analyze educator performance, focusing on classroom delivery and real-time student engagement metrics.
• School Board Governance: New initiatives ranging from AI-assisted board meeting administration to specialized professional development programs for board members.
• Cultural Immersion and Indigenous Language Preservation: In an Arizona school district with a Navajo population the board discussed the use of AI in preserving and teaching the language.

Further below we review additional AI issues we discovered in the analysis.

2. One of Burbio's detailed foundational datasets is district-level school calendar data mapped to zip codes and counties. By tracking localized variations in start dates, breaks, and year-end schedules, we help clients in staffing, retail, travel and K-12 accurately forecast demand across, and within, individual states.

As an example, in the chart below we show the percent of K-12 school districts on vacation by day in the Spring of 2026 (blue) versus the Spring of 2025. Note the highest percentage of districts were off last year during the third week in April, while this year it is the first week in April. The reason for this is many school districts schedule their break around Easter, which occurs on April 5th this Spring versus April 19th a year ago:

For this coming Fall, Labor Day 2026 is September 7th, while Labor Day 2025 was September 1st. This will result in districts that set their first day around Labor Day being a full week later than last year. Districts across the country are just publishing their Fall school calendars, and we update our data continually as new school schedules are announced.

3. Next week Burbio is adding dynamically updated district-level contact data (name, title, email address, phone, etc.) to our Intel Hub for decision makers across K-12. Clients will access the data for use in email campaigns and district outreach. This week we profile the variety of ways districts designate their facilities leadership. Below is the percentage of districts that have individuals with the indicated title:

The long-tail of additional titles includes Chief Facilities Officer, Director of Facility Services, Director of Maintenance and Operations, and many more.

4. Continuing the evaluation of AI-related discussions from board meetings from the last 60 days, below are five of the most frequently cited benefits of AI for school districts:

• Personalized Learning and Differentiation: Examples include using AI to create personalized learning pathways, provide one-on-one tutoring, and offer real-time translations and personalized language exercises.
• Boosting Student Creativity and Collaboration by sparking student creativity, facilitating collaboration on group projects and acting as a partner in brainstorming and refining ideas.
• Operational and Administrative Efficiency: AI is being used to streamline administrative tasks, such as analyzing large data sets, master scheduling, and identifying community resources for families.
• Preparing students for the future, integrating AI into the curriculum to ensure students can navigate the 21st-century workplace.
• Enhanced Instruction and Teacher Support: AI assists teachers by optimizing time, aiding in lesson planning, and improving the quality of feedback provided on student work.

We also asked about the biggest concerns of AI usage. These are issues that have come up frequently since we began monitoring the subject:

• Academic integrity and dishonesty given AI’s ability to assist in cheating and plagiarism.
• Student data privacy and security is a continual concern as districts evaluate AI tools and implementation against privacy laws.
• Impact on student cognitive ability through use of AI tools and excessive screen time.
• Algorithmic bias and lack of accuracy focusing on things like societal biases embedded in AI models, as well as the potential for the tools to generate inaccurate information.