Correction, June 18: Superintendent Anna Nolin’s quotation “The laws change and you have to stay updated” should have read “Because the laws change, you have to know” and has been placed in a different paragraph. The article was updated to reflect this change. The Newtonite apologizes for any confusion caused by this error.
Principal Henry Turner recently expressed concerns to the North community about a rise in cheating, in part through the use of artificial intelligence. He outlined “an increase in accusations and incidents that violate our academic honesty policy.”
In his email, Turner stated, “Cheating, plagiarism, using AI on any assignment without teacher direction… are all violations of the Newton Public Schools Academic Honesty Policy.”
With one out of ten students nationally reporting regular use of AI to complete school assignments according to the Pew Research Organization, North is grappling with uncertainty surrounding the rapid growth of AI use in the school.
According to Turner, “The pressure that students face for college is really challenging, and just making mistakes feels detrimental.” He added that students should “recognize that it is better to learn from your mistakes,” and “trust that your teachers at this school very much have your best interests in mind. If they are asking you to avoid using AI, trust them, because there’s a reason for it.”
The school is faced with the task of balancing the conflicting and nuanced opinions about the degree to which AI is acceptable of students, teachers, administrators, families, and the NPS district.
These wide ranging arguments include AI’s effectiveness in maximizing efficiency, providing real-world experiences, and evolving with the times. They also point out AI’s threat to critical thinking skills, as well as increased conflict between students and teachers due to varying rules across classes and the overall gaps in North’s current policy.
“It’s not as cut and dry as the teachers think it is,” said Superintendent Anna Nolin. “There’s a schism between how young people watch technology move and teachers who’ve done things in a certain way for a long time. It feels pretty scary to a lot of educators.”
Nolin herself recently confronted the uncertainty around AI’s acceptable use.
The superintendent submitted a community statement to be featured in The Newtonite’s annual graduation print special. GPTZero, the detector used by the majority of North’s teachers, indicated that her letter was written substantially by AI. While GPTZero is not always accurate, the detector’s results prompted inquiries.
After discussion with our editorial board, Nolin explained that she dictated her first statement into Apple CarPlay, where it was then automatically revised and plugged into Grammarly’s AI Writing Assistant tool. “The statement came right from my mouth, but was created into a sentence structure by an AI backend scenario,” she said.
At the end of the interview, Nolin agreed to write a new statement, which appears on page five of our graduation print special. According to GPTZero, Nolin’s second statement was “entirely human” in its construction.
Nolin’s explanation illustrates the confusion in the community about where boundaries should be set regarding AI use.
“We’re going to have to contend with AI as a society for school, but we don’t have that system down yet,” said Nolin. “We put out a policy in July, but AI has changed so much in the last six months.”
Nolin emphasized her concerns about the slow pace of integration of AI into North. “I’m shocked to see how little our teachers have done with AI,” she said.
North’s current Academic Honesty Policy states, “students should be aware that the use of artificial intelligence technologies in completing academic work should only be done with teacher approval and consultation.”
This phrasing allows teachers to form their own rules surrounding the use of AI in their own classrooms, leaving gaps in the policy that prompt debate. Although one of North’s schoolwide values promotes teacher autonomy regarding how they structure their classes, students struggle with the lack of standardization across class policies.
Nolin acknowledged the difficulties of adapting to different policies, but encouraged students to follow their teachers’ guidance. “You are in an academic environment that has certain policies. Know what they are and follow them,” she said. “Because the laws change, you have to know.”
The district policy also creates tension for teachers who grapple with the rise of AI use firsthand.
According to English teacher Will Marinell, AI use in classrooms has increased conflict between students and teachers, and contributed to widespread concerns about development of critical thinking skills.
“It works against the analytical reading, writing, and thinking skills that my curriculum is designed to develop,” said Marinell. “We’re collectively struggling as an organization to figure out what to do about this.”
In a New York Times op-ed this past May, Theo Baker discusses the impact of AI on his peers in his graduating class at Stanford. In the article, he says, “Relying on AI for cognitive tasks can reduce one’s own intellectual capacity and resilience. It’s one thing to use it in the workplace, but in the classroom, difficulty is often precisely the point.”
Conversely, integrating AI into coursework can benefit efficiency, productivity, and models real-world skills used in the workforce. History teacher Rob Greenfield, who is also North’s digital literacy coordinator, noted, “AI could be effective for a certain discipline and not effective for another discipline.”
Math teacher Maggie Daley, who also teaches computer science classes, said that in alignment with AI’s rising prominence, she and fellow math teacher Kanchant Kant incorporated lessons about AI into the second semester of the Computer Programming course.
Daley added, “AI is helpful for small bits of coding and solving problems. That’s what people would use it for in the workforce in programming or coding.”
While noting some benefits of integrating AI into classrooms, Greenfield said that his AI use is done “in a limited fashion with pretty significant human oversight.”
He added that he worries that overuse of AI can threaten thinking skills. “I am worried about my own creativity and my own analytical skills and my own idea making, and I don’t want that to atrophy over time.”
Across disciplines, this sentiment about AI restricting critical thinking skills is apparent.
Daley said, “It should be used in addition or extra, not a replacement for anything. Sometimes students lean on AI for the sake of time, which takes away the thinking process that’s really valuable towards their learning.”
According to Marinell, “There is compelling evidence that AI is harmful to young adults.” He added, “It impedes the development of critical thinking skills. There are also cases of it being pretty harmful to mental health and of it fostering addictive behaviors that are already being accelerated by smartphones and social media.”
Baker’s New York Times article echoed the idea of AI driving mental health issues. “It’s becoming baked in, shaping our generational character. We are a digital generation, growing only more attached to the virtual world,” he said. Later, he added, “The internet has already allowed us to feel more connected than ever while becoming lonelier than ever. AI lets us cut out the human part of human interaction entirely.”
Still, the argument for AI’s aid in maximizing productivity remains something to be recognized by administrators and the NPS district.
As a former English teacher herself, Nolin acknowledged teachers’ concerns about AI overtaking classrooms.
“This would feel like a threat to my very existence too, but we have to stop being afraid and try to figure it out,” she said.
In contrast with Turner’s sentiment that “the increase in cheating” includes “using AI to produce student work,” Nolin noted the importance of moving education forward with the advancement of technology, explaining how the city of Newton has integrated AI into the workforce.
“The mayor himself is saying they’re using technology efficiencies to make City Hall more effective, and that we should follow suit,” she said. “We also just had major budget cuts at the Central office. We’re going to be down 11 people, so I’ve been modeling using productivity tools to encourage people to use them.”
Teachers and students alike remain conflicted about drawing the line between productivity and shortcuts.
Marinell said that he attempts to maintain a sense of optimism in the face of what he sees as threats to learning. “The majority of students are working hard and resisting shortcuts,” he said. Marinell added that actual cases of cheating are “emotional and exhausting, but they don’t drive the story.”
Junior Charlotte Sutcliffe acknowledged the complexity of the AI debate.
“I am personally not very for AI because it’s not great for the environment and I do think that it is bad for learning,” said Sutcliffe. “Using it as a study tool where you don’t necessarily depend on it could be good, but I don’t think it should be used to write anything or used to talk to other people.”
Teachers voiced their support for professional development in AI use and academic integrity in a faculty meeting prior to Turner’s email.
“We had a faculty meeting to improve our response and ways that we are addressing these incidents,” Turner said in his email.
Daley said, “It’s hard to come up with a consistent policy throughout the entire school, but there’s so much nuance to it that I don’t know if it’s possible.”
Marinell said, “We deeply care about students’ growth and wellbeing, and we’re trying to navigate this moment in a careful, deliberate way that has their best interests in mind.”
Marinell tells his students, “You’re already equipped with a supercomputer—it’s your brain. Nourish it, love it, care for it, celebrate it, and protect it. Invest in the development of your voice.”
Greenfield acknowledged the difficulty of evaluating every perspective in the school.
“I think the tricky part is, everybody, depending on who you are asking, is going to have a different opinion,” said Greenfield.
