Artificial intelligence, or AI, has over the past several years had an enormous impact on our society, and likely will continue to in ways we can’t even imagine yet. At its best it is a tool for communities like ours to use to identify, address and solve problems in creative and powerful ways - there is the real possibility that AI can be used to strengthen BASE’s mission and core values, and have an impact on our world in ways that we believe are powerful and important.  

 

At the same time, AI poses substantial risks to communities - especially to communities that are already under-resourced. Some of the companies that are developing it not only acknowledge that it will put millions of people out of work, but actually have that as part of their mission, as this creates cost savings for their clients. AI poses privacy risks to users: it can quickly and easily collect massive amounts of data on people, which can be sold to marketing companies or used by governments. AI also uses tremendous amounts of energy: currently, the amount of energy used to create a single image is roughly the same as the amount used to fully charge a cell phone. Google has billions of searches a day, and the energy use quickly adds up. 

 

BASE believes the most important and ethical action we can take is to educate our students about AI, including: 

• what it is and how to recognize it

• what its strengths and limitations are 

• the potential risks, both immediate and long term

• ways it can support student learning

 

What is AI?

According to NASA, “Artificial intelligence refers to computer systems that can perform complex tasks normally done by human-reasoning, decision making and creating“

(nasa.gov/what-is-artificial-intelligence,  accessed June 2025). 

AI tools - including ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini - are “trained” to recognize patterns and communicate with humans by reading massive data sources, such as parts of the web. Some AIs are better at language, some are better at math and computational thinking, some at generating images. All of them make mistakessometimes - for example, accidentally pulling misinformation from a bad source (such as a bigoted IG post or someone’s blog). 

 

Ethical uses of AI

There are some that believe that AI is too problematic to use at all - that there are no ethical applications of AI. Others believe that AI is a reality and we need to find ways to navigate it. Another view is that despite its problems, it can be of significant benefit to our students’ learning, so we should take advantage of it. 

 

As of now BASE is neither recommending nor banning use of AI; each person needs to make that decision for themselves. Hopefully that decision will be thoughtful and informed.

 

What is clear, regardless of potential benefits, is that there are significant dangers, in school or out. No one should ever: 

• Use AI to create deep fakes, which can and do spread misinformation

• Upload images of a person into AI, including yourself or anyone else

• Upload any identifiable information to AI, given the serious privacy concerns about AI

 

How Students may or may not use AI​

The bottom line

Thinking and skill building - including problem solving, research and writing - are the student’s full responsibility. If a student gives over responsibility of any of these or other full tasks to an AI, the student violates this policy. 

 

• Not every situation has been discussed below. If a student has a situation that is not covered below, they must ask the teacher for permission. 

• A teacher may have policies in place that are specific to their classroom. When a teacher has indicated that any use of an AI for support on an assignment is unacceptable, then use of AI is unacceptable, regardless of whether the use falls under the “acceptable” category below. 

 

ANY TIME

Acceptable uses: Students use AI to learn (but not for action opportunities/assessments)

• A student asks an AI to edit an original draft of an essay. The AI suggests changes, the student reviews the changes carefully, and adjusts them before making them. 

• A student asks an AI to give feedback on an original thesis the student wrote. The AI makes suggestions, which the student reviews. The student makes changes themselves based on the feedback. 

• A student asks an AI to explain a concept in math. The student then cross checks the AI’s answer with another source to ensure it’s correct, as AI can get things like this wrong.

• A student asks an AI to code a website or app for a project that is not in a computer science class AND that is not being graded. 

• A student has an upcoming essay, which will connect multiple texts to a single theme. The student brainstorms themes for each text, then plugs the texts into an AI, asking it to generate themes shared by the texts.  The student then works with these themes and their own ideas to develop a thesis and the essay.

• A student is struggling with a math problem from their homework. They plug a similar problem into an AI, and the AI explains step by step how to solve it. The student uses the AI’s answer to solve the one they are struggling with, learning the steps for the next problem.

SOMETIMES

Uses that may be acceptable; the student needs to get permission from a teacher first 

• A student is researching a topic, and uses an AI to identify primary sources. The student uses these sources for their essay. 

• A student writes original code for an assignment, and asks an AI to review it for bugs. The student reviews the feedback and makes appropriate changes.  

• A student types a full math problem from their homework into an AI, and the AI explains step by step how to solve it. The student uses the AI’s answer after cross checking for accuracy, and learns the steps for the next problem and does them on their own.

• A student shares an academic argument with AI software, and asks it to find statistics that support it, to use in the project. The student cross-references the statistics to ensure they are correct, and incorporates them into the paper, using their own ideas. 

NEVER 

Uses that are never acceptable - these are considered MAJOR infractions

• A student asks AI software to write an essay.

• A student asks AI software to develop a thesis statement about two books. The student changes the wording and uses it as their own, writing an essay to support it.

• A student asks AI software to write an essay that the student can use as an example for how to write their own about the same texts. (Rationale: it will be hard to resist using the essay ideas and points directly from the AI.) 

• A student asks AI to write a speech that will not be graded. It does, and the student gives the speech, without making changes. 

 

Consequences for violating this policy

This ladder of referral is the same as for any academic integrity violation at BASE, across classes and grades. If a student has a first infraction in math in 9th grade, another infraction in ELA in 10th grade will count as a second infraction. 

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Consequences will include = X

Consequences can include = X

*Disciplinary action will be determined by TJ and admin, in consultation with the teacher(s).

Policy: Teacher and Staff Use

Addressing the use of AI explicitly in all classes

AI is a complex and often opaque area, technically, ethically and pedagogically. This makes it especially important that we talk about it as a community wherever it may arise as an issue. The goal is to hold a more nuanced discussion about AI and its implications every year with all students; what this looks like and where this will happen is TBD. 

 

In the meantime,

• All classes need to address AI in unit zero, including acceptable uses and teachers’ expectations.

• A class’s AI policy must be addressed explicitly in every course syllabus. 

 

Student privacy 

Staff should never enter any personally identifiable information (PII) about students into any AI unless that AI is explicitly granted permission to handle PII by the NYC Department of Instructional and Information Technology (DIIT), and you are logged into the AI platform using your NYC DOE account. 

 

Clarity with students about acceptable use of AI on assignments

When giving a school assignment that can be done digitally and at least partly completed at home, teachers should be explicit about expectations for whether students are allowed to use AI and in what ways.

 

When making this determination, teachers should take into account the assessed Learning Targets. For example, if a task assesses a student’s ability to find and identify reliable sources, it should be clear that it is not acceptable to use AI support to identify sources - even though this is one the uses that falls under SOMETIMES in the student section, above. On the other hand, if grammar and punctuation on an essay are not being graded, then teachers may allow students to use an AI to polish their essay.

 

Transparency in our own use of AI

Teachers should strive to be transparent with students about texts, problems and assignments that were developed using AI. (We may be moving toward a model in which we ask students to be transparent with us about their use of AI to support their own learning.) 

 

Grading/scoring and other instructional use of AI 

This is an area that AI can excel at; however, given the many concerns about AI we are not ready to allow this yet. 

 

• For the time being, no open ended questions - including essays, projects, problems requiring students to explain their thinking, etc. - should be graded using an AI. 

• Also for the time being, feedback to students should not be generated by AI. 

• The only acceptable use of an AI for scoring is for multiple choice, and only if the AI being used is cleared by DOE’s DIIT. 

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