Curiosity Ignited: Our Learning Journey to Navigate Artificial Intelligence at Winchester Public Schools

Generative Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing how we live and learn. Winchester Public Schools is embracing the evolving nature of AI and its impact on education. Starting in spring 2025, students in grades 9-12 will have the opportunity to use Google Gemini as they complete special assignments in core classes using the power of AI. We are dedicated to responsible AI use as we lead, learn, and innovate for the betterment of our community. 

Staff at WPS have been on a learning journey for 18+ months preparing for our launch of generative AI in the classroom. We've been intentional about building a plan and working our plan. Starting in 2023 we began immersing our leadership in key training sessions to help build common understanding. We defined our guiding principals and we started developing the framework we would utilize to roll out our plan for staff and students. For a year or more we participated in purposeful training and professional development led by our EdTech partner Advanced Learning Partners (ALP). Through many sessions our leadership team gained invaluable knowledge and understanding of AI and started collaborating on the ways in which we would begin to build our staff capacity and plan for educational experiences for our students. 

Alongside Henrico County Public Schools and Loudoun County Public Schools, WPS is leading the way in responsible AI integration in Virginia through participation in a special cohort through the Virginia Association of School Superintendents. We have been collaborating with this cross-sectional group of leaders across Virginia to build frameworks for the responsible, safe and ethical use of generative AI in the K-12 classroom. In addition, WPS has built an internal task force which has been charged with leading the roll-out across the division. This taskforce has worked to help build out resources for staff professional development in addition to lesson plan creation for students to guarantee we deliver a variety of training and exploratory experiences. Click here to see who was part of our AI Task Force.

Select the image below to see a full-screen graphic of our learning journey.