Anonymous wrote:Maybe OpenAI has a superintendent module that FCPS could pilot. Would save cost, since it wouldn’t need a security detail and might even make a good decision once in a while.

+1

Anonymous wrote:What an embarrassing announcement. Truly embarrassing.

FCPS is truly an embarrassment.

Society is systematically becoming ADHD. And not education reflects th… squirrel.

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Anonymous wrote:I can’t understand how any of this is “easier” than reading a book together as a class, discussing it and then working on a short essay. Or, a teacher teaching the content in the next chapter in the math textbook. Using the book practice questions and homework assignments.

Honestly…. All this busy/ make work when the old textbooks have already done the planning for you is self-inflicted.

why did we move away from textbooks? Truly dont know how or why that happened over the last 20 years.

DP. Textbooks are expensive and get outdated quickly, which then necessitates that either teachers find supplements or schools spend more money on new textbooks. Twenty years ago, we didn't know using digital textbooks would affect student comprehension.

I'd love to know what subjects get "outdated quickly" at the FCPS level. Math, science, literature, arts, history - is someone teaching a subject that requires yearly updates? I doubt it.

In Virginia, the standards for these subjects are reviewed and modified every seven years. At the elementary level, it’s common for each grade level to have a few standards that shift down a level and a few that shift up a level each time this happens. It’s also common for the application of the standard to change, such as adding that students now need to interpret a model. So the textbooks do become outdated, in terms of being able to use them effectively and correctly, every seven years.

Yes, but the bulk of the material remains unchanged for decades. Algebra concepts are not changing, history is not changing, phonics is not changing, symbolism ix not changing, etc. The ability to learn the bulk of the material in a straightforward, organized way through an edited and fully vetted textbook far outweighs it missing one VA standard.

+1 The alternative now is that teachers are photo copying hundreds of pages each week that have been cobbled together from various websites, homeschooling sites, and TpT. Each teacher reinvents their own wheel. Standards are introduced in a disjointed way. One concept does not flow into the next. Scraps of poorly formatted paper worksheets are thrown at the kids. The kids have no single source like a text to draw upon for information so they are forced to Google the internet for answers. Then they don’t read. They skim websites for quick answers to complete the blanks on the sheet and move on. When it’s test time they have scraps of worksheets, videos, Gatehouse slides (mostly from 2020-2021), Gatehouse created Google activities like Escape rooms/pixel art with no show your work answers, never explained Gizmo answers, answers in electronic files like interactive notebooks, Brainpop vids, Math antics vids, News A to Z, etc. It’s very challenging for kids to learn in a coordinated fashion where ideas are connected and learning thoughts lead from one idea to the next idea. Rather, ideas are disconnected and students don’t have a text to review. There is no one central notebook of notes since Kahoot questions and videos were the norm in how the material was presented to them.

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Anonymous wrote:I can’t understand how any of this is “easier” than reading a book together as a class, discussing it and then working on a short essay. Or, a teacher teaching the content in the next chapter in the math textbook. Using the book practice questions and homework assignments.

Honestly…. All this busy/ make work when the old textbooks have already done the planning for you is self-inflicted.

why did we move away from textbooks? Truly dont know how or why that happened over the last 20 years.

DP. Textbooks are expensive and get outdated quickly, which then necessitates that either teachers find supplements or schools spend more money on new textbooks. Twenty years ago, we didn't know using digital textbooks would affect student comprehension.

I'd love to know what subjects get "outdated quickly" at the FCPS level. Math, science, literature, arts, history - is someone teaching a subject that requires yearly updates? I doubt it.

In Virginia, the standards for these subjects are reviewed and modified every seven years. At the elementary level, it’s common for each grade level to have a few standards that shift down a level and a few that shift up a level each time this happens. It’s also common for the application of the standard to change, such as adding that students now need to interpret a model. So the textbooks do become outdated, in terms of being able to use them effectively and correctly, every seven years.

Yes, but the bulk of the material remains unchanged for decades. Algebra concepts are not changing, history is not changing, phonics is not changing, symbolism ix not changing, etc. The ability to learn the bulk of the material in a straightforward, organized way through an edited and fully vetted textbook far outweighs it missing one VA standard.

Is this going to be a PD and training for us and give us more to do on top of what we already have to do to survive teaching this year ?

Anonymous wrote:Maybe OpenAI has a superintendent module that FCPS could pilot. Would save cost, since it wouldn’t need a security detail and might even make a good decision once in a while.

Too funny. You win best comment!

Maybe OpenAI has a superintendent module that FCPS could pilot. Would save cost, since it wouldn’t need a security detail and might even make a good decision once in a while.

Anonymous wrote:How do we fight against this?

You can't, AI will eventually fade away but the single party school board is not going anywhere.

How do we fight against this?

I was thinking about this today, if a college was boasting that they were letting AI take over, would anyone send their kids there?

Anonymous wrote:Did FCPS long-range plan the budget for the licensing fee for this once the “free pilot” ends?

Guess what part of the budget will be allocated to pay for this teacher productivity “enhancer”: teacher salaries.

So, taxes will go up, teacher salaries will stagnate, and classroom learning and student engagement will crater.

And the environment is cooked.

It all feels very “free Lucky Strikes for the boys overseas.”

The lucky strikes quote is best I’ve seen to capture problem most quickly

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/teachers-and-parents-weigh-benefits-and-risks-of-artificial-intelligence-in-schools

“

Well, I think school district leaders should constantly remember that, for organizations like OpenAI, giving away ChatGPT is a customer acquisition strategy.

These companies are trying to build brand affinity and make students customers for life. And our public school system should be very careful about how we invite any kind of company into what we take as a public good and as a good that students can't refuse. I think there are some districts that are exploring questions like, should students and families be able to refuse, be able to say, actually, I don't want my students introduced to those tools, and how would they logistically work with that and how would that work?

Probably, the other thing that school districts really need to keep in mind is that this free technology they're getting is venture capital-subsidized technology. This is like the Uber rides you used to get for $8 across town. One day, the investors will want their money back. And when that day comes, we may find that the consumer experience of these tools gets much, much worse, that either they become more expensive or they have more advertisements, more sponsored content, all kinds of things that maybe we really don't want happening inside of our schools.

So school district leaders making these big purchases or these big acceptances of free resources from schools really need to think carefully, not only about the decisions they're making now, but what they may be locking themselves into for the future.“

Relevant story from the Guardian today:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/22/ai-workers-tell-family-stay-away

“Once you’ve seen how these systems are cobbled together – the biases, the rushed timelines, the constant compromises – you stop seeing AI as futuristic and start seeing it as fragile,” said Adio Dinika, who studies the labor behind AI at the Distributed AI Research Institute, about people who work behind the scenes. “In my experience it’s always people who don’t understand AI who are enchanted by it.”

Also, it seems extra tone-deaf and obtuse for both FCPS and PWCS to be jumping into this pilot program when our local data centers are gobbling up our electricity and water. I guess the allure of (unnecessary) tech outweighs our looming resource shortages.

Did FCPS long-range plan the budget for the licensing fee for this once the “free pilot” ends?

Guess what part of the budget will be allocated to pay for this teacher productivity “enhancer”: teacher salaries.

So, taxes will go up, teacher salaries will stagnate, and classroom learning and student engagement will crater.

And the environment is cooked.

It all feels very “free Lucky Strikes for the boys overseas.”