The opening of a partnership between Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPSS) and OpenAI in August, combined with the rapid expansion and access to Artificial Intelligence (AI), has aroused debate among Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA) students and teachers regarding the use of AI in education.

Last year, Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPSS) issued AI Guidance, a document that establishes appropriate and ethical generative AI use in City Schools.

Additionally, BCPSS recently launched a partnership with OpenAI that will grant teachers access to a specialized product called “ChatGPT for Teachers.” The platform provides “teacher-specific onboarding, prompts, and recommended use cases” among other features for administrators and student privacy, according to OpenAI’s Help webpage.

BCPSS has been the only district in Maryland to partner with OpenAI. Emma Ayala, a teacher in the Visual Arts and Film Departments, expressed concerns about the partnership. “I don’t know why they’re working specifically with this organization, which is known to be more irresponsible,” Ayala said.

Though teachers do not yet have access to this technology, some are upset because they had no input or knowledge of the partnership until it was announced. “They haven’t explained anything. I also find it very troubling to be able to make an announcement like that, but they haven’t explained anything to school staff,” said BSA math teacher Jocelyn Providence.

Other teachers view this partnership differently. “It could be [useful]…if I’m struggling to think of a creative way to do something,” said library media specialist and English teacher Meredith Simmons. “Using a professional level of ChatGPT to alter a lesson to fit a student’s needs wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

Part of the district’s guidance states that “AI users will be responsible and accountable for processes where AI systems may inform decision-making or pedagogical practices.” The guidance also lists appropriate educator uses for generative AI, such as writing assessment questions, generating charts or diagrams, limited grading, and giving suggestions for teaching strategies.

The policy also clarifies, “Educators will ultimately be responsible for evaluation, feedback and grading, including determining and assessing the usefulness of AI in supporting their grading work” and that educator and student use of AI “must be disclosed or explained.”

Ayala said she is “a pretty strong believer in not using AI, basically, at all in the classroom. I would say that the more I learn about AI, the stronger this assertion gets.” Multiple teachers support Ayala’s opinion and do not plan on incorporating AI despite the partnership. 

Students are wary about teachers and students using AI in the classroom. “I genuinely do not think teachers should [use AI] at all, because it has been shown before in the past that AI has made mistakes and just calls more work for everybody,” said senior vocalist Chelsea Dixon.

“Students shouldn’t be allowed to use it whatsoever, because it has been proven to take away from cognitive performance,” said junior percussionist Alan Stoupel.

Not every student feels the same. Senior film student Justice LeGrand said, “I personally don’t really mind” if teachers use AI to create lesson plans or graded assignments, “but if there’s essays or creative writing work that’s being graded by AI, I don’t think that that should be happening.” 

Some teachers have found AI to be a helpful tool. For example, Simmons finds “using [AI] primarily to be more efficient with what [she is] doing in [her] lesson plans, but also always double checking what it produces.” 

Simmons said, “I had [ChatGPT] make a chart of the components of AP Seminar and I put that in my course expectancy. It’s a visual representation of what happens in the class. But I gave it the information and that created the chart.” However, Simmons also believes using AI to write letters of recommendation or grade writing assignments is “unethical.”

The BCPSS guidance document clarifies, “Educators will ultimately be responsible for evaluation, feedback and grading, including determining and assessing the usefulness of AI in supporting their grading work.”

Many students take issue with teachers using AI for efficiency. Senior dancer Eve Craven finds it “incredibly lazy” for teachers to use AI to be more efficient in the classroom. Craven said, “I think that their whole job is to make lesson plans, grade, and to teach… What’s the point of being a teacher? You’re just asking to get your job taken by AI at this point.”

Principal Rosiland Cauthen said, “Students and parents should be aware if a teacher is using AI, particularly around grading in any sort of way.”

As much as we resist AI, it is still present in our lives. Some students and teachers believe that it is important that AI literacy is taught and explored at BSA. Cauthen said, “Foundations of Computer Science class should be a safe space to explore some of these topics. But I also know that some of that exploration will cause controversy amongst the student body, depending on how they feel about it. And I think artists in particular, we feel very strongly about it.”

LeGrand said, “I absolutely believe that AI literacy should be implemented in every school now that it’s become such a big…part of our lives…I think that they should be able to develop skills to spot AI and ways to learn how to use it effectively, but not abuse it.” Similarly, Simmons said, “[AI] is going to be an important part of your lives. And knowing how to use it responsibly is going to be important.”

Not everyone thinks it’s important to learn AI literacy at BSA. History and government teacher Valerie Johnson said, “[t]hese adults I know learned how to use [AI] in the last 6 months. I don’t think that not teaching it to you when you’re 16 or 17, I don’t think that’s a crisis.”

But others at BSA firmly believe in the presence of AI in the future. “If you don’t use AI, you’re wasting time. And you’re gonna lose your job,” said Foundations of Computer Science teacher David Cantor. 

LeGrand said, “I do think that it’s gonna become a big part of everybody’s lives, and everybody should start getting used to it as much as you like it or don’t like it.”

But Ayala thinks learning to be AI literate and having to use AI “is not inevitable. I cannot emphasize it ever enough. It’s not inevitable.”

Teachers like Johnson worry about the loss of struggle and fight in classrooms. “The whole point of learning is the friction and is the frustration tolerance,” Johnson said. “Especially as still K-12 learners. You have to learn things before you know what you’re doing, and what AI does is it eliminates friction for people in their learning process. It takes the hard parts away and does them for you.”

On the extent to which AI should be used in the classroom, Cauthen said, “If a teacher is using AI to help surface some ideas for a lesson plan or to help lay out more possible research avenues that a student can take, that’s absolutely fine. If a teacher is using AI to do their thinking for them, and to completely do their lesson plans and grading for them, I don’t think that’s acceptable… that is the work of the teacher to create their own lesson plans, to do their own reading.”

Another issue facing classrooms is bot-to-bot connection, where teachers create assignments with AI and students complete them using AI.

Ayala said, “Students are very quick to sniff out a hypocrite. I think that it’s really hard to tell students you need to practice these skills if you are not using these skills in your life.”

Just like everything else in the world, there is good and bad in AI, but many believe the expectations between students and teachers should not change because of it.

“I always feel like if I expect something from students, I should abide by the same rules,” Spanish teacher Ileana Imhoff said. “I am not comfortable asking students to do something that I’m not willing to do myself.”

To contact this writer, email Muse Newspaper at musebsa@bsfa.org.