Published 10:15 am Monday, September 14, 2026
Juneau school officials are considering how emerging AI tools should fit into classroom expectations, student work and district policy as the technology becomes more common in education. (Laurie Craig / Juneau Empire file photo)
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Juneau students could soon get clearer rules on when generative artificial intelligence is a classroom tool and when it crosses the line into cheating.
The Juneau School District Board of Education’s Policy Committee is preparing to revisit its academic honesty policy as schools across Alaska grapple with rapidly expanding use of programs that can write essays, answer questions, generate images, and assist with schoolwork.
The committee’s Sept. 3 agenda listed Board Policy 5131.9, Academic Honesty, among its future business, along with proposed updates from the Association of Alaska School Boards, the City and Borough of Juneau’s new generative AI policy, state guidance, and a report from district administrators on internal AI meetings with school and department leaders. The topic was listed for future consideration rather than at the Sept. 3 meeting.
What Juneau’s eventual rules will look like is not yet clear. No district proposal was included in the Sept. 3 materials, and the agenda does not say whether the district is considering a stand-alone AI policy or revisions to its existing academic honesty rules.
The city calendar lists the Policy Committee’s next meeting for noon Oct. 7. It does not yet have an agenda showing whether the AI discussion will take place then.
The review comes nearly a year after the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development released a statewide framework encouraging school districts to move beyond blanket bans and establish rules for responsible AI use. When the framework was presented in October 2025, KTOO reported that Juneau did not have a districtwide AI policy, although the Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé student handbook included AI in its academic dishonesty rules.
JDHS continues to publish a student handbook for the 2026-27 school year, but the district’s upcoming review would address AI at the board-policy level rather than relying only on individual school rules.
Alaska’s guidance treats the technology as something schools will have to manage rather than eliminate. Its seven principles call for human oversight, fair access, transparency, protection of student information, ethical use, and attention to cultural bias. The state says AI should supplement human judgement and should not make decisions affecting students, including grading or discipline, without human oversight.
For districts, DEED recommends building a team that includes teachers, administrators, technology and privacy staff, students and parents before developing local rules. Schools are also urged to vet AI literacy and incorporate the technology into existing academic integrity, acceptable-use and student conduct policies.
The recommendations get more specific inside the classroom.
State guidance offers a five-level scale teachers can use to tell students how much AU is permitted on an assignment. Level 1 prohibits AI entirely. Level 2 allows brainstorming or initial research, while Levels 3 and 4 permit increasing amounts of help with drafting, structure, editing, and feedback. At Level 5, AI may generate the primary product while students are evaluated on how they prompt the system and evaluate, revise, and critically engage with its output.
“Don’t assume students understand the line between using AI as a tool and cheating,” DEED’s guidance tells educators, recommending that expectations be established for each class and assignment. It also recommends students disclose or cite AI use when it is permitted.
The state cautions teachers against relying on programs that claim to detect AI-generated writing because of concerns about false positives, false negatives, and bias against non-native English writers. Instead, the guidance suggests changing assessments to put more weight on students’ process, drafts, and ability to explain their work.
Privacy is another part of the question. DEED directs educators not to enter personally identifiable information such as student names, email addresses, identification numbers, or photos into AI tools and say student work should be treated as confidential unless permission has been given and the platform complies with privacy requirements.
The Association of Alaska School Boards began updating its model academic honesty policy to account for artificial intelligence in 2023. AASB described the revision as a response to the growth of AI and generative technology in schools.
Model language reproduced in other Alaska district policy packets recognizes that students and educators are likely to use AI and says the technology can serve as a tool for instruction, critical thinking, and development of original work as long as its use complies with academic honesty requirements and is properly identified. The accompanying model administrative regulation lists submitting uncited AI-generated material among examples of academic dishonesty.
Juneau would not be the first Alaska district to formalize those rules. DEED currently points districts to AI-related policies adopted in Anchorage, Bering Strait, Chugach Copper River, Cordova and Dillingham, while the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District has a separate board of policy specifically governing artificial intelligence.
In Southcentral Alaska, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District has spent much of this summer reviewing revisions to its academic honesty and technology policies related to AI, illustrating the different approaches districts can take as the technology changes faster than traditional policy cycles.
Juneau’s Policy Committee is also looking locally for a model.
CBJ adopted an administrative policy March 20 governing how city employees and volunteers may use generative AI. The policy requires the city’s IT director to approve AI programs before they are used for city business and allows approved tools for tasks including research, brainstorming, translation, summarizing, drafting, and data analysis.
City workers remain responsible for checking AI-assisted work for accuracy, bias, privacy, copyright, and legal concerns. Confidential or personally identifiable information cannot be uploaded unless a program has been specifically approved for secure use, and AI cannot make final policy, personnel, legal, or financial decisions without human review. The policy applies to CBJ employees and volunteers, not to students’ classroom use.
DEED’s district guidance recommends explicitly addressing AI-generated deepfakes in acceptable-use, anti-bullying, and student conduct policies, including manipulated images, video, and audio involving students or employees.
Juneau’s Sept. 3 agenda separately identifies safety and discipline policies for future review, although the document does not connect those reviews to the district’s AI work.
For now, some of the most important details remain inside the district. The Policy Committee has specifically requested an administration report on internal meetings already held with school and department leaders, but no report was attached to the Sept. 3 agenda.
Those discussions could determine whether Juneau adopts broad districtwide limits, leaves individual teachers room to decide how AI can be used on particular assignments, requires students to disclose AI assistance, or establishes a list of approved tools for students and employees.
