Head of School Articles

By: Dr. Olaf Jorgenson, ACDS Head of School

AI is poised to end content mastery — the memorization and recall of information — as the primary goal of education. AI’s full impact on schools is still unfolding, but one thing is clear: in the AI era, mastering educational content alone will no longer meet the needs of students, parents, or the workforce. 

As David Brooks wrote in “How the Ivy League Broke America,” “AI is already good at regurgitating information from a lecture. AI is already good at standardized tests. AI can already write papers that would get A’s at Harvard. If you’re hiring the students who are good at those things, you’re hiring people whose talents might soon be obsolete.”

This awareness is not new at ACDS, and it’s at the heart of the balance we provide our students. Yet for nearly three centuries, the relentless pursuit of content mastery has driven instructional methods, goals, and outcomes in schools across California and the U.S. 

While AI will influence every school in the years ahead, including ACDS, this school’s value proposition goes well beyond what AI can replicate. Since Mrs. Hunter founded ACDS in 1982, we’ve dedicated academic time each week to helping students build skills like social awareness, self-advocacy, and self-regulation. Long before “social-emotional learning” became a buzzword, our curriculum integrated academics with collaboration, interpersonal skills, public speaking, teamwork, and citizenship across all grade levels.

Our target learning outcomes have always extended beyond academic excellence to include confidence, curiosity, empathy, resilience, and agency — qualities AI cannot cultivate. Nurturing children’s joy in learning, emotional growth, and independence is core to our identity. As AI displaces traditional content mastery as the focus of education, other schools will scramble to adopt what’s already embedded in ACDS’s DNA. 

(For more on AI and the future of education, please see this LinkedIn post.)

Preparing for the AI Era

At the same time, we recognize it’s our responsibility to prepare ACDS students for the AI-powered world they’re entering. AI can be a powerful learning tool — but also a tempting shortcut, blurring truth and authorship.

That’s why we’re phasing in AI slowly and thoughtfully, aligned with our instructional values and prioritizing student wellness. Our goal is to help students use AI ethically, responsibly, and effectively.

Current AI Use at ACDS

At ACDS, we treat technology — including AI — as a tool, used when it meaningfully enhances learning, like math manipulatives, wall maps, beakers, and popsicle sticks. We don’t elevate technology beyond its value as a learning tool; teaching at ACDS is driven by the relationships our teachers have with their students, and their ability to challenge, stimulate, and care for each child, every day.

Currently, none of our teachers are using AI in the classroom, though we’re aware some students employ AI at home. As we begin introducing AI in the older grades, we’ll apply these guiding questions that govern technology use school-wide:

Technology Implementation at ACDS

• How can technology enhance learning and engagement?
   
• How can technology increase equity and access to curriculum?
   
• How can ACDS help students use technology ethically?
   
• How can technology prepare students for high school and beyond?

Entering the AI era, our approach to technology use at ACDS remains conservative and student-centered. We use technology when it supports learning — not for its own sake. 

Preparations & Limited Implementation

During summer 2025, a team of ACDS teachers and administrators formed our AI Task Force and received training in best practices for AI in schools. They developed our draft “AI Guidelines for Middle School Students,” which will evolve as we learn and will be used internally to inform teachers’ lesson planning.

Our initial goals for limited AI integration include:

• Upholding Academic Integrity: Reinforce expectations for originality and clarify AI’s appropriate and inappropriate uses.
   
• Supervised Use: Offer guided opportunities to explore AI creatively and cognitively, while understanding its limits and risks.
   
• Ethical Understanding: Teach students to evaluate authenticity, integrity, ownership, and accuracy of AI practices and products.
   
• Digital & Prompt Literacy: Build skills to assess AI output, cite use properly, and recognize bias or inaccuracies.
   
• Authentic Learning: Use AI to enhance — not replace — student academic, social, and emotional growth.

These steps reflect our commitment to adapt responsibly to this new technology, keeping student learning and wellness at the center of AI implementation.

In December 2025, instructional leaders Mrs. Robb, Mr. Adams, and Mrs. Murphy will attend the NAIS Symposium on AI and the Future of Learning in Houston. They’ll join 1,500+ school leaders to learn from national experts on AI in education, and they’ll bring these new insights back to ACDS. Their leadership will help guide our next steps with AI, aligned with industry best practices. As AI evolves, so will our understanding and application of this new tool. Great schools are always becoming.

Looking Ahead

ACDS is proactively readying for what I’ve described as “the AI storm.” Preparing teachers to capably navigate the storm is one of our top instructional priorities for this school year. While it’s natural for parents to feel uncertainty about AI’s impact on children, schools, and our shared experiences, you can be confident ACDS will continue to provide a safe, balanced, and enriched learning environment focused on the wellness of your children, and integrating technology only when it extends the learning experience.