Florida Board of Education passes AI rules for K-12 schools and state colleges, effective for 2027

The Florida Board of Education on Wednesday passed rules for the use of artificial intelligence in K-12 public schools and state colleges.

At a meeting at Polk State College in Winter Haven, the board approved policies requiring school districts to amend their regulations on internet safety to include AI and require state colleges to provide limitations on AI use in schools.

"Artificial intelligence is already in the classroom, and the rules before you today are about keeping Florida in front, rather than reacting," said Education Commissioner Henry Mack.

In K-12 schools, districts will be required to notify parents if their student will be using an AI product. Parental consent will be required for AI use, and the district will have to offer an alternative, non-AI instructional tool similar in instructional quality if a parent does not allow their child to use AI.

School districts must finalize the policies by July 1, 2027, for the 2027-2028 school year.

For the state's 28 institutions in the Florida College System, colleges will now be required to adopt policies on AI "to ensure quality of education for students, efficiency of operations, and a safe learning environment for the whole college community."

Those policies must prohibit students from using AI to work on graded assignments or assessments unless explicitly permitted to do so by the instructor.

"AI is an enhancement. It's a supplement. It doesn't supplant. It's complimentary," Mack said. "The rules before you today elevate that in a very nuanced way. It's a difficult conversation."

For school districts, any AI used in grades PreK-5 will have to undergo an additional review for approval, and no AI instructional tools can be used to meet a student's social or emotional needs; to simulate an emotional relationship with a student or use relationship-building or anthropomorphic design features to encourage a student to interact with the AI product.

The AI tools also cannot subject students to undisclosed behavior monitoring, social scoring or psychological profiling.

Teachers and administrators will also be required to undergo training regarding AI risks, limitations, safety and compliance, and students will also not be able to use AI unsupervised. School personnel must also be able to immediately suspend or disable the AI product without vendor assistance.

And districts must prioritize vendors that keep student data within the United States, and vendors cannot sell, monetize, profile or commercially exploit data to train commercial AI models.

"We are exercising the virtue of prudence here," Mack said. "We are neither going to one extreme, i.e. banning AI, nor are we going to the other extreme, which is unfettered access, so there's real value in what we're presenting today."