Genesee Valley BOCES report says schools must embrace AI |
On Board Online • August 10, 2026
By Rick Karlin
Special Correspondent
A new report from Genesee Valley BOCES says educators need to accept that students will be using artificial intelligence (AI) to do schoolwork and that it is impossible to devise AI-proof assignments.
The report, titled Teaching About.AI, A Report for the K-12 Field, says the challenges presented by the availability of AI tools highlight a more fundamental problem: teaching and assessment methods need to be updated.
"All of this disruption has laid bare a lot of issues," said Christopher Harris, director of the School Library System for Genesee Valley BOCES.
Key to understanding the authors' perspective is the idea of a "wicked problem." A wicked problem is a complex, constantly evolving issue for which there is no silver bullet for improvement.
"Education itself is the wicked problem," Dr. Harris said. "AI just makes the cracks visible. Treating AI as something we can 'solve' misses the opportunity to redesign learning for the world we're actually in."
Supported by a $400,000 grant from Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, the report argues that AI provides an occasion for re-thinking many aspects of education, including the role of teachers.
Instead of viewing AI as a challenge or problem, it should be seen as an impetus for change and use of new approaches, according to the report.
For instance, the report recommends using Black Box Assessment, an approach developed by Australian and British researchers that permits students to use AI. The key idea: "Reward learning journeys, not just endpoints." It also recommends Voice-First Written Assessment.
One way or another, schools will need to adjust to a new, AI-influenced learning environment, according to the report.
The report is skeptical of school efforts to limit AI use, including AI policy statements, traffic-light rubrics, acceptable-use rules, "use this AI for this purpose only" instructions or AI detectors.
"Retire the phrase 'AI-proof' from district vocabulary," the report urges. "Replace it with a three-part question: Is the assessment valid, aligned with learning outcomes and fair?"
Harris said that any attempt at detection will lead to an adversarial situation and a digital arms race that could be never-ending.
Rather than worrying about whether a student used AI to write an essay, teachers should instead focus on the underlying thought process or the logical argument behind a given essay or piece of work, Harris said. That could involve more in-class writing assignments or discussions, and evaluations of the processes students use to develop their ideas.
"I want to focus on the thinking," Harris said. "That's what we really want to push."
The report was written by six librarians at GV BOCES with the assistance of a 15-member panel of experts that included several school district and BOCES administrators. Also on the expert panel were professors from Appalachian State University, Cornell University, the University of Kentucky and the University at Rochester, as well as Deakin University in Victoria, Australia.
The report includes a series of guiding statements called the Rochester Provocations, which are ideas that grew out of a meeting convened last winter in Rochester.
"Avoidance of AI in education is not an option," is the first sentence of one provocation.
Another states: "Most things a human teacher can do, AI can mimic. If we cannot identify and prioritize what human teachers bring to the classroom, we risk replacement."
[Editor's note: New York State United Teachers has called for stronger oversight of emerging AI technologies in classrooms, and a bill in the state Legislature would require school districts and BOCES to have a policy prohibiting AI-enabled humanoid robots from performing duties traditionally assigned to certified teachers.]
Harris hopes the report will prompt more school districts to view AI as a prompt for rethinking a lot of what they do.
"A lot of districts have been taking a wait-and-see approach because it's a challenge, and it's changing so rapidly,'' he said. "I'm starting to see more districts saying, 'Now we need to implement something.'"
Wondering why there is a period in the report title, Teaching About.AI? It's actually a web address, if you delete the space.
Type "TeachingAbout.AI" into a web browser to read the report and find supporting materials for educators.
Teaching About.AI is a follow-up to LibraryReady.ai, a previous report by Genesee Valley BOCES that said school libraries need to become hubs for AI readiness as librarians help students learn about computer science, media literacy and information literacy.