www.weny.com · Kara Jeffers · September 4, 2026
Several Pennsylvania lawmakers plan to draft legislation setting clear guardrails around artificial intelligence for school districts.
Artificial intelligence is already common in the classroom- a recent industry survey found 68% of k-12 educators use the technology.
State Rep. Pete Schweyer, chairman of the House Education Committee, has one of four bills to address the issue.
"Pennsylvania is really behind the ball on addressing and governing and putting rules in place on AI in school," Schweyer said.
The chairman's bill lays out rules for schools when they purchase AI technology, student data is protected and the vendor meets certain certifications or criteria to be used.
A second bill creates an ai professional development grant for educators so they use artificial intelligence ethically and efficiently- taking full advantage of new tech while knowing ins and outs to avoid cheating and other ways the tool undermines education.
A third bill mandates all public school districts to have an artificial intelligence policy, mirroring some of the protections that Schweyer's bill could provide statewide. District policies might be required to address cheating, privacy, sexual exploitation, and other harms or benefits that can rise from artificial intelligence.
Lastly, Rep. Melissa Shusterman wants to prohibit schools from using artificial intelligence to provide mental or behavioral health services.
Schweyer says statewide guardrails around artificial intelligence can nudge schools to be responsible with the tech instead of taking a "no use at all" approach.
"We want school districts to use appropriate tools that will help, you know, for lack of a better term, train up our kids on these on these technologies, so that when they go to college or they go to a trade school or they go in the workforce, it's not the first time they're seeing it," Schweyer said.