This story was written by Lia Salvatierra, our new Education Reporter. Find more of Lia’s reporting here. Do you have an NKY education story? Email lsalvatierra@linknky.com.
An Annual AI Summit for Educators this Tuesday left more questions than answers, as educators, students and current industry leaders weighed the realities of the rapidly developing technology against their ideals.
Attendees and discussion leaders shared diverse and opposing thoughts, questions and strategies about how artificial intelligence can and should play a role in public school education.
The day opened with a panel of industry leaders, who by and large, promoted the technology as an indivisible part of students’ future careers.
It ended with a panel of Beechwood High School graduates offering some of the strongest pushback in the room against using the technology often—or even at all.
“I wish that in high school and college there was no AI at any point,” said Louis Schlosser, a 2025 Beechwood graduate and current student at Harvard University.
It’s the third year Beechwood Independent Schools has hosted the yearly summit as a regional think tank for navigating how AI will impact the region’s schools and students as its developing workforce. The event is also open to educators in Ohio and Indiana.
The event is one of the ways the region stands on the bleeding edge of conversations around AI in schools. Northern Kentucky Cooperative for Educational Services also has the only AI integration specialist in the state compared with other regional cooperatives.
Beechwood Superintendent Justin Kaiser told LINK nky that this year’s half-day summit begged many of the same questions as the past two years.
But he noted an increased awareness and need for these conversations, and chief complicating factor: student pushback.
He noted the group of nearly 100 high school students from across the country who gathered in D.C. to draft and pass the Students First Act — AI regulations for public schools at the federal level.
It was something that adult legislators themselves had failed to do.
“There’s an undercurrent of rebellion against the ‘all in on AI,’” Kaiser told LINK nky.
“How do we get them to not hate it, because they’re going to use it,’” he said.
“Get on the bus, or get out of the way”
At the onset of the summit, a panel of eight local industry leaders affirmed that artificial intelligence is here to stay, offering insights into how it’s used in jobs and the skills graduates should have.
Kaiser asked the panel whether it’s still true that a graduate who knows how to use artificial technology will still have a job, over one that doesn’t.
“We’re trying to create experiences in our classrooms that model the real world,” Kaiser said.
Zach Deatherage, an engineer with GE Aerospace, said using AI was an unavoidable part of his job.
“I was told when I first joined the company that basically with AI it was, ‘Get on the bus, or you get out the way, like it was required’” Deatherage said.
Another panelist, Laura Wooten, vice president of software company Civica. Wooten said it’s also deeply integrated into her company.
“If one of my employees is not using AI, the question is why,” Wooten said. Wooten is also a vice chair of the Beechwood Independent board of education.
But panelists also noted the importance of empathy and emotional intelligence in the workplace — skills artificial intelligence can’t bring to the table.
“Empathy is huge in local government,” said Covington City Manager Sharmili Reddy.
Another panelists, Andrew Cullison, founding executive director of the Cincinnati Ethics Center, also raised questions about AI’s limitations in the classroom.
He highlighted the value of “old school” methods for teaching fundamental skills like writing.
“The only way you can spot bad writing is if you know how to write,” Cullison said to a nodding audience.
Leveraging AI as educators
Most panels throughout the day focused on teaching educators strategies for leveraging AI in their roles and classrooms.
One breakout session on “Advanced Pedagogy” focused on how one Dayton Independent Schools educator has used artificial intelligence to gamify middle school history.
Jon Taylor, who leads Dayton’s secondary school social studies department, shared ways he’s used Google’s artificial intelligence tool Gemini to create interactive archetypes for his students.
He’s used the technology to turn the U.S. Constitution into an AI chatbot character his students could interview, for example.
He also created an AI personality for John Proctor, one of the first people persecuted during the Salem Witch Trials.
“They think it’s the coolest thing ever,” Taylor said.
“They call it ghost hunting,” he said.
Taylor said he’ll then host a press conference for interviewing those historical characters using the AI tool, and evaluate students on how they ask questions.
He also spent a good chunk of his presentation coaching the room on ways to build a safe chatbot with guardrails for potential issues with safety and accuracy of information.
Ethics and AI
Attendees also discussed ethical concerns from AI’s water consumption to its potential to produce racist content during a breakout session with Cullison from the Cincinnati Ethics Center.
Cullison’s presentation focused on offering clarifying information about key ethical arguments, like how much water AI actually uses compared with other technologies like Google, and the impact it will have on jobs.
Attendees of the session also touched on student pushback against AI, saying they’re finding that students are favoring traditional methods of learning like handwriting.
Cullison acknowledged that reality, saying he’s seen the same thing with his son, a student at Beechwood.
“He’s like, ‘I love it.'” “We don’t have the laptops out. I just get to write with pencil and on paper. I mean it’s like he’s been introduced to some kind of mystical experience,” he said.
He also said he believes AI is reemphasizing the importance of the humanities.
He also pushed against the temptation to turn away from AI completely.
“I think to some degree, we do have to participate in systems we find objectionable,” he said.
“If the ‘move fast, break things’ bros are the only ones participating, then we’re going to get the worst version of it,” Cullison said.
Students wrestle with use
During a closing Q&A panel, former Beechwood graduates wrestled with how the technology fit into their own education at Beechwood and in college.
Facilitator and Beechwood teacher Molly Siefert said the conversation served to highlight that how Beechwood uses and teaches AI hasn’t mirrored its graduates’ experience in the real world.
“What we’ve been doing at Beechwood, it doesn’t match up,” she said.
Two out of the four graduates said they and their schools essentially never use or allow the technology, while the other four students said it’s used regularly on their campus, with rules.
Some said they think it’s ethical and useful in certain situations, like for creating flashcards or helping understand complex textbook topics better.
But the majority, four out of the six graduates, said they generally stray from using it.
“Stay authentic, if you cannot use AI on anything,” said Gabe Grinsteinner, a 2025 Beechwood graduate. “I have never learned anything better through using AI,” he said.
Another graduate, Annabelle Bishop, said as a writer she puts organic time and energy into her writing, and would want to be graded with the same care.
Schlosser, the most vocal opponent on the panel, said he opposed the technology in schools entirely.
“I just think it’s terrible, all in all, for all of us,” Schlosser said. “I am very much against AI in school.”
Lia Salvatierra is a journalist with Report for America, a service program that helps boost coverage of underreported topics and areas throughout the United States. To help LINK nky continue to provide this kind of reporting, you can make a tax-deductible donation here.
