Burbio School Tracker 7/29: AI's Early Days

1. Last week the Federal Department of Education issued a Dear Colleague Letter on "leveraging federal education funds to improve educational outcomes through artificial intelligence," and published a proposed rule for comment on Advancing Artificial Intelligence in Education. This is a follow up to April's formation of an Artificial Intelligence Task Force and coincides with the Trump administration's "AI Action Plan" announced last week. 

These are early steps in what will be a transformation of education through the use of AI tools, and we can expect an acceleration in the coming year due to the rapid advancements in the field. In our May 13 Tracker we noted common characteristics of AI initiatives we are seeing in district strategic plans, including professional development, CTE programs, use in instructional materials, and community engagement programs. 

This week we highlight references to artificial intelligence in LCAPs in California, which are being posted for the 2025-26 school year and offer the most up-to-date look at district activity in this area: 

• Acalanes Union High School District, CA has created a working group on Artificial Intelligence and Academic Integrity, which created a guide for using generative AI for school related activities. This approach of forming district-level, cross-functional committees on AI is one we see with increasing frequency and we would expect will become near-universal during 2025-26. The district also reports, "Efforts to foster responsible social media use and build student AI literacy have yet to prove effective. Site administrators continue to report online bullying through social media . . ."
• McFarland Unified School District, CA reports a "key challenge is motivating students to engage and succeed . . . particularly in the area of literacy. Many students have developed a reliance on simply cutting and pasting material without fully reading or understanding it, a trend compounded by student reliance on AI tools  . . ." 
• Jefferson Union High School District, CA, as part of their CTE program, has developed a partnership to "implement The Automobiles of the Future, an afterschool STEM program . . . that explores electric and autonomous vehicles. Students engage in hands-on learning . . . aligned to math and engineering standards, including UI/UX design, generative AI, data analysis, and career exploration with industry professionals."
• Gilroy Unified School District, CA reports "Teachers have expressed a desire for additional professional development, particularly regarding Artificial Intelligence and the TPACK model, to better leverage educational technology in differentiating instruction . . ."
• Capistrano Unified School District, CA describes AI initiatives running through their technology department, including digital citizenship, AI literacy skills, and personalized learning. 
• Anaheim Union High School District, CA is using AI tools "to better measure student progress and outcomes related to college, career, and life readiness .  . . (and) support monitoring student engagement, tracking performance, and providing personalized student supports . . . professional learning will prepare staff to leverage these tools in ways that reflect trauma-informed practices and culturally responsive instruction . . ."

Burbio tracks AI initiatives, and funding, across school board meetings, strategic plans, state grants, state education board meetings, budgets, Federal initiatives, and more, and we plan on adding new datasets in the coming months that will give an even fuller picture of this rapidly changing landscape.    

2. Burbio's school board meeting minute dataset contains everything from policy trends to highly specific, contextual answers about district initiatives through our Signals Tracker. This week we look at terms related to behavioral health, student conduct, and school safety. The following chart shows the percentage of districts whose board meeting minutes mentioned the term at least once in the twelve-month period ending May 31st. The analysis is broken down by district locale, and the final column shows the average of the four segments. We start with terms that appeared the most frequently:

The next chart creates an index from the figures above, indicating the difference in frequency of mentions across locales: 

Further below we do the analysis for terms that appeared a bit less frequently.  

3. Burbio's State Grants Tracker features almost 2,000 state grants offered to PreK-12 districts. The data is updated daily, and clients use the data to reach out to districts and make them aware of the opportunities. With the new school year approaching there is an increase in grants for the coming academic year. A handful of recent examples: 

• Indiana's STEM Integration Grant is designed to enhance student participation and achievement in STEM disciplines.
• Maryland's Therapeutic Child Care Grant Program provides funding to health/medical-based child care in coordination with early education services to children under the age of 6 years with developmental delays, physical disabilities, or delays in social, emotional, or behavioral functioning.
• Georgia's BOOST program continues this year and is designed to expand access to and improve the quality of summer enrichment opportunities and comprehensive after school programming for K-12 youth statewide.
• Oklahoma's Essential Arts Education Grants are awarded to districts for arts programs being conducted during the school day.  

4. We finish with analysis of another set of behavioral-related terms from school board meetings mentioned a bit less frequently than those above, and broken down by district locale. We start with the percentage of districts mentioning the terms in the twelve months ending in May:

The following chart presents the indexes: