A plan for AI in a diverse urban district.

How to bring AI into practice responsibly

Kent School District serves about 25,700 students in 46 schools, in one of Washington State’s most diverse communities, with a vision of students as global citizens. It had a clear vision for instructional technology and digital equity, and one open question: how to bring AI into classroom practice and system-wide strategy responsibly and effectively.

District leaders needed a framework that balanced innovation with ethics, aligned with state and federal guidance, and worked for every educator, whatever their starting point with AI.

Two days of Strategic Design with a cross-functional team

In 2024 the district assembled a design team of educators, librarians, digital media specialists and administrators. Over two days, engage2learn facilitators guided them through the Strategic Design Model, a process grounded in research and built on backward design and design thinking.

Drawing on engage2learn’s AI Implementation and AI in the Classroom rubrics and on Washington’s Human-Centered AI Guidance for K-12, the team wrote a shared vision of how AI could raise student learning, instructional practice and equity across the district.

Competencies at every level of the district

The result is a set of AI competencies, scaffolded across proficiency levels, that support implementation in the classroom, the school and the district. Built on local values and input from across the district, they give Kent’s educators a clear roadmap for using AI responsibly and effectively.