Seminole County Schools mulls banning AI, TikTok, limiting bathroom use

Editor’s Note: The School Board of Seminole County Public Schools regularly hosts workshops where issues are discussed but not voted on. These workshops take place in the middle of the work day, cannot be attended virtually and the recordings are not made available to the public unless requested.
When the issue comes forward in the school board’s regular, published meetings it’s oftentimes placed on the consent agenda, where items are blanketly approved because they have already been discussed in the workshops.
OCN reporter Abe Aboraya plans to regularly request these workshop recordings and they will be published in our articles concerning the meetings moving forward. You’ll find the recording for the latest workshop embedded below.

Submitting school work written with the help of AI, or artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT, will officially count as plagiarism in the 2024-25 school year, according to a draft policy the School Board of Seminole County Public Schools is scheduled to vote on at its June 18 meeting. 

An AI ban is one of myriad draft changes to SCPS policy documents being considered, with many of the controversial changes required by state laws. Potential changes include a complete ban on TikTok on district devices and district WiFi, greater limits on social media use by students, and a clear list of which high school courses can be taken as pass/fail. 

There’s also a disciplinary change that would require students to use the bathroom and changing rooms that correlate to their sex assigned at birth – and clarifying that failure to listen to an administrator’s request to stop using the unassigned bathroom is considered insubordination. 

The changes will come before the board at the June 18 board meeting. 

SCPS is also voting on a new draft Student Progression Plan, a new draft Student Conduct and Discipline Code, and a new Discipline Procedures Manual. Find those documents attached to this article below.

Amy Elwood, assistant superintendent of student services, told board members during the workshop that the district is adding the language about AI into the definition of cheating, “trying to stay up to date with changing technology.”

School Board Chair Abby Sanchez asked if the district is able to use a service like Turnitin.com, which allows teachers to submit works and check for plagiarism. “With the honor code, do they still use Turnitin.com, to check if there is a way?” School Board Chair Abby Sanchez asked. “I know with AI and ChatGPT and some other apps that are all surfacing now, how do they go about finding out if there is a violation due to utilizing those formats?”

Mike Rice, assistant superintendent for high schools, said SCPS does still use Turnitin.com, which does have a feature to check for AI. That feature is expected to get more expensive. 

“I don’t know that the accuracy of that is 100%, just because of where it’s pulling from is all kinds of sources,” Rice said. “There have been some situations this year that we have caught students in the act of utilizing [generative AI].”

Rice said the hope is that there’s a learning component to it as well, and that students can be taught how to use AI and cite it properly when needed.

Students required to use bathrooms according to sex assigned at birth

Additionally, students are now required to use the bathroom and changing rooms correlating to their sex assigned at birth, which is based off of House Bill 1521, the Safety in Private Spaces Act.

“Under the insubordination infraction, we have added language that ‘a student who enters the bathroom or changing room not correlating with their biological sex at birth and refuses to exit when directed to do so is subject to disciplinary action,’” Elwood said. “That’s where it becomes insubordination, and so that’s the violation that that is connected to.”

Disciplinary options for insubordination range from time out to detention, in-school suspension or Saturday school, all the way up to out-of-school suspension and referral to law enforcement. It does not allow for expulsion or an administrative assignment to another school. 

Separately, administrators clarified that when a disciplinary measure’s punishments are all optional, staff must still pick a punishment. 

“One or more of those options must be selected,” Elwood said “We had a little bit of confusion where people thought it was optional to provide a consequence. It’s not optional to provide a consequence. These are all of your different options.”

SCPS bans TikTok

Social media use by minors was a hot topic this legislative session, and the results of that are working their way into school policy. 

According to a draft policy, students will be prohibited ”from accessing social media platforms on the district Internet, except when expressly directed by a teacher solely for educational purposes. Also, students are prohibited from using a wireless communication device to access the TikTok platform or any successor platform on the district Internet and may not communicate or promote district school organizations, clubs, teams, events or activities on the platform.”

School Board Member Autumn Garick said schools have to balance the harms and the benefits of social media. 

“Certainly we need to be lawful, but also those social media platforms are used significantly by some of our clubs and groups throughout schools,” Garick said. “So [we’re] trying to figure out how we can navigate the statutes but still make sure those options are available when they are beneficial to our students.”

SCPS Attorney Karlene Cole-Palmer said schools can use social media platforms, including clubs, as long as they are appropriately monitored by staff. But schools specifically cannot use TikTok or any successor platform.

Superintendent Beamon said SCPS will work on a FAQ-type guide to go out for parents and schools. 

“We will work together to provide the guidance as to adherence to the policy so that students will not inadvertently violate the code of conduct,” Beamon said. “That information, that clarification, will come as an education point for students and staff.”

SCPS is also clarifying that the list of courses that can be taken as pass-fail, as opposed to having a letter grade, can only come from an approved list of courses, and cannot be managed by a school’s principal. 

The school is also clarifying that if a student is being administratively assigned to an alternative school or has been expelled, that student can’t access a Hope Scholarship to enroll in a private school until after the expulsion or assignment is complete. 

These policy changes will be addressed at the June 18 School Board meeting in Sanford. Check here for more information about the meeting, which will be held at 5:30 p.m. in Sanford.