The District Where Eighth Graders Helped Write the AI Policy
When Dr. Michael Lubelfeld returned to North Shore School District 112, serving Highland Park and Highwood, Illinois, he came back to a district rebuilding trust. He later guided the community through the pandemic and the devastating Highland Park Independence Day parade shooting in 2022.
Through each challenge, District 112 kept returning to the same commitment: prepare students for the world they will inherit. That commitment shaped the district’s response to artificial intelligence.
At a national conference in early 2024, Lubelfeld learned about an AI platform for educators. He immediately connected it to a problem he had studied throughout his career: differentiation. “For 50 years, differentiated instruction has been elusive,” he said. “And I believe generative AI tools, used properly, can do that.”
By March 2024, District 112 had launched its first pilot. But the most important decision came before any student began using AI. Leaders established a guiding principle: Innovation with Guardrails.
Students would work inside district-approved environments reviewed for privacy, accessibility, and instructional value. Teachers would remain at the center. Students would learn not only how to use AI, but how to question it, evaluate it, and decide when it belonged in their work.
Over the next two years, that principle grew into a developmental continuum across four student cohorts.
The work began with ten fourth-grade English Language Learners at Oak Terrace Elementary School. Using teacher-created AI environments, students received support with brainstorming, proofreading, and writing feedback as they developed personal narratives. The tools did not write the stories for them. Students remained the authors.
They wrote about learning to ride a bicycle in Mexico, making friends at the Highwood library, and finding the courage to speak English with classmates. Two students wrote directly about learning in more than one language. AI helped them express their voices more fully. It did not replace those voices.
At Edgewood Middle School, eighth graders faced a different challenge. After studying the history, possibilities, and limitations of artificial intelligence, they created applications addressing problems they cared about. Students built eleven tools, including an immigration guide, a translation tool for refugees, and an application that made current events more accessible to younger readers. That news application, created by a student, won the Illinois middle school state championship in the Presidential AI Challenge.
Two Edgewood students took on an even larger role. Initially among the more skeptical students in the class, they were invited to serve as voting members of the district’s Educational Technology Committee. They did not attend as symbolic representatives. They helped write the district’s AI policy.
Using a shared Google document, students and adults drafted language together. Alice and Fiona’s revisions appeared alongside those of principals, teachers, curriculum leaders, and technology staff. In some cases, student wording was retained over an adult’s.
The Board of Education adopted the policy in March 2026. It established principles for human-centered use, educational purpose, privacy, equity, AI literacy, and responsible innovation. It also included a five-tier framework that helps teachers communicate how AI may or may not be used on each assignment. Reflecting on the experience, one student told Lubelfeld, “We thought we were just checking a box. But you really took us seriously.”
The district documented its implementation carefully. Across 18 months, 543 staff members produced more than 74,000 AI-assisted generations connected to teaching, while students participated in more than 16,700 interactions inside district-managed environments.
Sixth graders in another cohort increased their confidence in building an AI application by 48%, while their overall outlook toward AI remained unchanged. They became more capable while remaining thoughtful and discerning.
One sixth grader captured that understanding in a single sentence: “The AI doesn’t understand anything.” That is AI literacy. Students were learning to use a powerful tool while recognizing its limitations.
During this same period, District 112’s statewide academic ranking rose from the 84th to the 88th percentile. The district does not present AI as the sole explanation, but as one part of a broader story of strong teaching and purposeful innovation.
Lubelfeld retired on June 30, 2026, after 35 years in public education. The structures created during his final years were designed to continue without him. The board policy, approved tools, assignment framework, and student seats on the technology committee now belong to the district.
His advice to other education leaders is simple: do not lead with technology. Lead with pedagogy and relationships. Put thoughtful protections in place. Then create room for students to build, question, and contribute.
North Shore School District 112 shows what can happen when students are trusted not only to use emerging technology, but also to help shape the rules surrounding it.
Read the complete District 112 story in Purposeful Technology, Powerful Learning: You Can’t Ban Possibility. Now available in stores!
Published October 8, 2026
AUTHOR: Dr. Stacy Hawthorne, CETL serves as the Chair of the CoSN Board of Directors and Executive Director of the EdTech Leaders Alliance.
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