AI Training for School and College Administrators

Students started using AI before most schools had a plan for it. Teachers noticed. Parents noticed. And administrators were left with questions that don’t have easy answers.

What counts as cheating? What can staff put into an AI tool? Who is responsible when something goes wrong?

Those are leadership questions, not technology questions. And they’re hard to answer without some hands-on experience.

Start with your own experience

I’ve spent 17 years teaching communication in higher education. In fall 2023, I launched one of the country’s first college-level AI literacy and prompt-writing courses. I also co-wrote my college’s AI academic integrity policy, and I serve on the Lenawee Intermediate School District advisory board.

Here’s what I learned. Policy written without understanding the tools tends to fail in one of two ways. It’s either so strict that nobody follows it, or so vague that nobody knows what it means.

What administrators need to decide

Every school and college ends up facing the same set of questions:

• Academic integrity. What’s allowed, what isn’t and how will instructors explain it to students? Clear examples help more than long rules.

• Student privacy. Student records are protected by law, so staff need to know what should never be entered into a public AI tool. Check with your legal counsel on your specific obligations.

• Staff use. Can employees use AI to draft emails, summarize reports or build lesson materials? Under what conditions?

• Accessibility. AI can help students and staff who learn or work differently, but only if the tools and documents are built with accessibility in mind. I’m Quality Matters trained and handle accessibility standards myself.

• Training. A policy no one understands doesn’t protect anyone. Staff need practice, not just a memo.

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Having AI is not the same as using it well

Many schools and colleges now have AI tools available, whether built into software they already use or approved for staff. It’s easy to assume that means the work is done.

A 2026 working paper from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University shows why that’s risky. Researchers randomly gave some students at a large public university access to an AI tutor built into their course. Those students earned lower final grades and took part less in the course’s online activities than students without it. The authors suggest the tutor may have pulled students away from learning activities that were already working. The paper is a working paper, which means other researchers haven’t reviewed it yet, and it studied one university.

It doesn’t mean AI tutors can’t help. It means that turning on a tool is different from using it well. Design, guidance and training matter.

Michigan's AI Readiness Plan is a related point. It says organizations often lack the staff and technical support to adopt AI well, even when they want to.

So when I work with a school or college, I start with the people. What do your staff already do each week? Where would AI help, and where would it create risk? Then we practice on those tasks together.

For Ohio and Michigan leaders

Ohio has put real resources behind AI in schools. The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce offers a main guide, Integrating Artificial Intelligence in Content-Area Instruction, with a model for how students can use AI responsibly. It also offers separate guides for subjects including English language arts, math, science, social studies and world languages. The state’s InnovateOhio AI Toolkit for K-12 districts, released in February 2024 with The AI Education Project, is also still available.

Ohio is investing in higher education too. Under the state budget (House Bill 96), the Ohio Department of Higher Education created a pilot grant program to help community colleges integrate AI, and it held a webinar for colleges on the program in October 2025.

For higher education and workforce leaders, JobsOhio’s AI Ready Ohio program, expanded in 2026, includes a certification track called AI Empowered Leader, aimed at executives and decision-makers. I’m an approved member of the program, and I think it’s a strong resource.

Guides, grants and toolkits are a good foundation. They don’t replace practice. A document can tell a teacher what responsible use looks like, but it can’t show her how to write a prompt, check an answer or explain the rules to a room of students. That happens when a team works through real tasks together and talks through its own policy questions.

Why a hands-on workshop works

I don’t teach a single tool. I teach a method for writing clear prompts, checking the results and deciding when a human needs to step in, which works no matter which software your district or college chooses.

In a workshop, administrators and staff work on real tasks from their own roles, such as drafting a family communication, summarizing a committee report or building a first draft of a policy. We use those tasks to talk through the policy questions that come up. People leave with both skills and a shared understanding.

I train school and college teams on-site across Lenawee County, Southeast Michigan and Northwest Ohio, including Toledo, Sylvania, Perrysburg and Bowling Green. I also teach live online sessions for groups anywhere in Michigan and Ohio.

Wondering where your school or college stands? Book a 20-minute fit conversation. I’ll tell you whether I’m the right fit, and if I’m not, I’ll say so.