2 Glendale seniors among national student study on AI

Two Deer Valley Unified School District students plus a district administrator will represent Arizona at the inaugural AI Fellowship in Boston.

The Leadership and Innovation Fellowship at America’s Youth AI Festival, a first-of-its-kind gathering in Boston and Cambridge during the nation’s 250th celebration, takes place July 17-19. Mountain Ridge High School incoming seniors Shamitha Doki and Nandana Warrier, as well as the district’s K-12 manager of instructional technology, Michelle Coots, were selected to take part.

All participating students will pass a national AI policy for public K-12 classrooms. The policy will be created by students for students.

The Fellowship will bring together two high school students from each state, and 50 school system leaders, for a three-day leadership residency on AI. The students and school leaders will explore how artificial intelligence can be used responsibly, ethically, and productively in schools, communities, and with the broader society that students will inherit.

Coots was among the team of specialists that the Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy, through Northern Arizona University, assembled to draft formal AI guidelines, as was district Superintendent Dr. Curtis Finch, to review the material which will pursue effective and responsible GenAI implementation.

“Artificial intelligence is already shaping the world in which students are maturing, and young people deserve a meaningful voice in how that future is built,” said Jeff Riley, executive director of Day of AI and former Massachusetts commissioner of elementary and secondary education, shared in a press release. “This national class of Student Senators represents an extraordinary opportunity to listen to students not as passive users of technology, but as leaders, citizens, and problem-solvers.”