As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly woven into students’ schoolwork and teachers’ daily routines, Oakland Schools is taking a more deliberate approach: Teach educators how to use the technology, help districts develop policies and keep humans at the center of education.
That effort is being led by Justin Bruno, director of AI Strategy and Innovation at Oakland Schools, who was hired in September 2025 to help develop an all-encompassing strategy for artificial intelligence.
“I think that was evidence of Oakland Schools making this a priority,” Bruno said. “Trying to figure out what sorts of strategies we need to be setting internally around AI, and how that’s going to fit into our operations, and how we do things.”
Bruno recently added Shana Ramin from Royal Oak as an AI consultant to his team, who will work directly with local school districts to help them plan, implement and strategize around emerging challenges and opportunities.
The work comes as schools across Oakland County and the country grapple with a technology that students are already using.
Common Sense Media, an independent non-profit education research group, released a study in August that asked more than 1,000 U.S. students between 13 and 17 years old about how they use AI. Seventy percent said they use AI for schoolwork, and nearly two-thirds of those students said they use it in ways that can shift critical thinking from the students to the technology.
Among teens who use AI for schoolwork, 63% said they get an answer from AI in at least one way: 35% said they get an answer and then fix or improve it based on what they know; 31% said they get an answer and rewrite it to sound like themselves, and 25% said they use an AI-generated answer as-is.
The findings underscore the challenge facing educators. AI is a powerful tool, but it makes it easier for students to bypass the very thinking and practice that assignments are designed to develop.
At the same time, students appear to recognize the trade-offs.
Thirty-eight percent of AI-using teens said the technology leads them to generate fewer of their own ideas, while 39% said they feel they are missing out on learning when they use AI to complete assignments. Yet 66% said AI helps them understand schoolwork, suggesting that students’ experiences with the technology are more complicated than a simple cheating-versus-no-cheating debate.
Common Sense Media cautioned against assuming that students themselves are the primary problem.
“As educators and policymakers weigh risks, we should be cautious about narratives that instinctively blame teens for using AI in schoolwork,” the report said, arguing that schools also need to consider the broader culture and incentives surrounding AI use.
For Oakland Schools, that means focusing on literacy and responsible use rather than relying exclusively on bans.
As a new department, Justin Bruno said, his team is building on work that was already underway at Oakland Schools before he arrived.
photo courtesy Oakland Schools
Training educators to use AI
Oakland Schools has adopted ChatGPT EDU, an education-focused version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, giving staff access to the tool. Because the organization uses Google Workspace, staff also have access to Gemini, another AI platform.
It is rolling out a monthly webinar series designed to help employees understand what the tools can do and how they might fit into everyday workflows.
Districts have designated professional development days throughout the year, and Oakland Schools is increasingly being asked to provide AI training during those sessions. The agency also plans countywide conferences, sessions and webinars for educators who can attend voluntarily.
Educators might learn how to use AI tools in their daily work, but the sessions also will address instructional questions, such as how a social studies teacher might rethink assessments in an era when students can turn to AI or how educators might use emerging tools to better understand student progress.
“There might be a new AI tool that’s just debuted in the last couple years that might be really helpful,” Bruno said. “We’re trying to build those training initiatives.”
Rather than attempting to deliver every message directly to every educator, Oakland Schools is also working with district-level leaders who can help spread AI guidance.
The approach recognizes that each district is at a different point in its AI journey.
Bruno points to Royal Oak as one of the leaders in the county. Avondale Schools also has taken a proactive approach under the leadership of Michelle Gierman, he said. The district has created a Student AI Advisory Council and regularly has students update district leaders on how they are using AI.
He said Oxford Schools is developing guidance for staff and students while considering questions surrounding AI tools and assessment redesign.
Holly Schools is earlier in the process, but has made AI a priority for the school year. The district recently released guidance for staff and is emphasizing professional development, along with expectations that schools and teachers address digital citizenship and AI literacy with students throughout the year.
“There’s some great stuff happening in the county,” Bruno said.
Moving beyond the chatbot debate
The rapid growth of AI has also created a new education technology market.
Companies such as MagicSchool, SchoolAI and Brisk have emerged as prominent AI-focused tools for K-12 education. Unlike general-purpose AI systems, some of these platforms offer additional guardrails and features designed specifically for schools.
That distinction matters as districts decide how students should access AI.
A district might be comfortable giving older students access to a general-purpose tool such as ChatGPT or Gemini while deciding that younger students need a more controlled environment.
But Bruno said schools ultimately need to think beyond simply deciding which tools students can or cannot use.
“We still want to encourage a systemic change,” he said. “Because when kids go home and do that work, they’re going to have access to tools that everyone has access to that can be used for good or for ill.”
The Common Sense report findings reinforce that concern. Among teens who use AI for schoolwork, 44% said an AI tool had been blocked on a school network or device. Of those students, 59% said they simply switched to a personal device to get around the ban.
Among teens who use AI for schoolwork, 44% said an AI tool had been blocked on a school network or device. Of those students, 59% said they simply switched to a personal device to get around the ban.
file photo
The report also found a significant gap in AI literacy education. Only 27% of teens said a teacher had ever talked with them about how to use AI safely, while 73% said they had not.
The report also said blanket bans and one-size-fits-all restrictions can prevent some students from benefiting from technology and urged schools to leave room for accommodations based on individual student needs.
For Bruno, the answer lies in teaching students how to navigate AI rather than assuming they can be shielded from it.
Keeping people at the center
Bruno’s approach is rooted in a broader question: What should AI actually be doing in a school?
Education, he said, is fundamentally human and he sees AI as a way to strengthen work educators are already doing.
“Education is such a human-focused thing, and we don’t want to be automating things that would still benefit from the human being the primary deliverer of or facilitator of that service,” he said. “ So by no means am I thinking we’re going to automate or speed up things. It’s more of how can we use AI to do what we’ve always done better for more people.”
That distinction becomes important when considering AI tools that can grade papers or provide feedback on student writing.
Those tools can help a teacher who is overwhelmed by an ever growing workload and class sizes. But Bruno said schools should be careful not to confuse efficiency with educational effectiveness.
“The expertise of that human and the motivation that that human can provide to improve their writing, or to improve their work over time” remain essential, he said.
An AI system may be able to identify weaknesses in a student’s writing, but a teacher can understand the student behind the writing and provide encouragement, context and motivation that a machine cannot replicate in the same way.
That human relationship is something Bruno said should remain central even as schools adopt increasingly sophisticated technology.
A critical year for AI literacy
The Common Sense study suggests schools have little time to waste in developing AI literacy.
Only 30% of teens in the survey said they had discussed AI safety with a teacher, and just 27% said they had discussed AI literacy. Forty-four percent said they had talked with a teacher about rules governing when they should and should not use AI.
The report characterized the current school year as an important opportunity for teachers to begin those conversations.
Students themselves also identified skills they believe will remain important in the future. Among AI-using teens, 55% identified working well with others as an important future skill, 50% cited fact-checking and critical thinking, and 48% cited reading and understanding complex information.
Those are the kinds of skills educators are trying to protect as AI becomes more capable.
For Oakland Schools, the goal is not simply to keep pace with a rapidly changing technology. It is to help districts make thoughtful decisions about where AI belongs — and where it does not.
As a new department, Bruno said, his team is building on work that was already underway at Oakland Schools before he arrived.
“There was great AI work happening before I came on board,” he said. “Oakland Schools were leading lots of great learning, and so now we’re just kind of accelerating that and trying to be a leader in the state.”
He believes the agency is moving in that direction.
The challenge now is to make sure the technology advances without leaving the people at the heart of education behind.