School board weighs new student safety and AI policies

MANAWA – The Manawa Board of Education reviewed changes to student safety protocols and artificial intelligence (AI) guidelines during a meeting last week.

The board conducted a first reading of multiple policy revisions designed to protect students from predatory behavior. The policy revisions are in response to Wisconsin Act 89, a state law that requires all public and private schools to adopt strict policies regulating how school employees and volunteers communicate with students.

The legislation mandates that school boards must establish clear standards defining the “appropriate content” and “appropriate methods” of communication between staff and students, which must apply to interactions both during and outside of regular school hours.

The proposed updates to the district’s Student Supervision and Welfare policy provide a definition of “grooming behavior” and “boundary violations.”

Grooming behavior describes a course of conduct or pattern of behavior intended to condition, seduce, or lure a child for the purpose of sexual contact or producing sexually explicit depictions. The policy strictly prohibits behaviors such as telling sexual jokes, engaging in sexual innuendo, and talking about sexual topics unrelated to the curriculum.

The policy also defines “boundary violations,” noting that relationships can become inappropriate based on the frequency, timing, location, or nature of interactions, even without the explicit intent to groom a student.

The policy lists 17 examples of boundary violations, including initiating contact beyond the school day for personal purposes, giving students’ rides in personal vehicles without administrative approval, and being alone with a student behind closed doors without a legitimate educational purpose.

The policy changes also restrict how staff, school officials and volunteers can communicate with students, restricting all student-related communications to district-approved platforms, which the policy notes includes the district’s email system and the official school Facebook page.

Even when using district-approved social media platforms, employees and volunteers are prohibited from communicating privately (one-on-one) with individual students.

The board is also considering updates to its Student Technology and Acceptable Use policy to establish clear standards for AI.

Under the policy changes, students would be prohibited from inputting personally identifiable information or confidential school records into any AI tool that is not explicitly approved by the district. Students would also be required to disclose the use and extent of AI assistance on any submitted work.

Unauthorized use of AI tools to complete academic assignments would constitute a violation of the district’s academic honesty policy.

The policy also bans the use of AI to create deepfakes, impersonate others, or distribute deceptive and harmful content.

District Administrator Ryan Peterson said the second and final reading of the policy changes will take place at the July 27 school board meeting.