RIVER FALLS — The River Falls Board of Education heard a presentation on Artificial Intelligence use in district classrooms and approved a parking lot resurfacing bid during the April 20 meeting.

“AI is presenting a challenge, but remembering our core has been provided for us by the district, and that’s where we’re holding tight to,” Co-Director of Academic Services MaryBeth Elliott said. “Our day-to-day of how we do business isn’t changing, and this focus is remaining the same, but how can we use generative AI to enhance all of these [team belief and instructional vision focuses].”

The district utilized the technology committee made up of middle school, high school and central office staff, which looked into AI in schools. The committee previously dealt with the review of the district learning management system, electing to make the switch from Schoology to Google Classroom.
The committee defined AI and laid out what it should and should not be used for. Uses that were listed as acceptable were brainstorming, autocorrecting and offering suggestions, while using it as curriculum, to complete writing tasks or to replace human instruction were not acceptable. Additionally, the committee listed information that can and cannot be shared with AI by students and staff.

Gemini and Notebook LM are approved AI services for teachers and students ages 13+. ChatGPT for Teachers is approved for teachers, but not for students.

District staff took a survey to gauge opinions on AI use in the classroom.

“The majority of our staff have played with AI, and they had to rate what kind of user they were in AI, and most of them said they just kind of have played around with it for text generation, presentation generation, quiz or image generation,” Elliott said. “At the elementary level, the primary uses have been for administrative tasks like writing emails, newsletters or letters of recommendation. The primary use at the middle school and high school, our survey showed, was for generating ideas for lessons.”

Survey results showed 85% of secondary staff and 100% of elementary staff said they do not feel comfortable managing a classroom where students are using AI. Additionally, 72% of teachers are concerned it impacts students’ critical thinking abilities.

The district has filters in place that prevent students from getting answers to schoolwork from AI.

“It’s trying to prompt them to do more guided learning,” Elliott said.

Board Vice President Alan Tuchtenhagen said conversations around the topic will likely be continuing for a long time, so it is important to continually update the board and the community.

“You can see we’re trying to make sure that we’re in a place that we know how to engage our students, faculty and staff with AI. It’s a moving target, it’s changing all the time. It’s not just another software program that we’re going to be dealing with,” Tuchtenhagen said. “Helping to prepare them for a world of AI in the rest of their career, because we’re at the very front end of this.”

Parking lot resurfacing

The board approved a $563,405 bid from Monarch Paving Company for parking lot work at Rocky Branch Elementary, Meyer Middle School and the high school. The other bid came in from Park Construction at $628,098. The district will use leftover referendum funds to complete the project.

“At first we were thinking probably, for financial reasons, a mill and overlay might be our best options; however, in meeting with some of these vendors, they were really pushing hard for replacement,” Director of Finance and Facilities Lynette Coy said.

After bringing in multiple companies for walkthroughs, the district was told if full 10-inch grinds and resurfacings were not done at Rocky Branch and Meyer, they could be dealing with cracking in 2-3 years. The project will include a full replacement of the Rocky Branch parking lot, a replacement of Meyer’s north parking lot and a mill and overlay of the high school student lot.

Down the road, the district is still exploring a rework of the high school parking lot to ease the congestion at the beginning and ending of school days and adding another parking lot at the high school for increased event parking. Those items are still in the planning stages.

“In addition to that, and we’ve had some conversations at Finance and Facilities, would be adding parking at the high school,” Coy said. “Tonight’s agenda item is not adding any parking, it’s really just redoing some of our current lots; however, we are still in the process of planning that additional parking at the high school.

“We kind of see where the additional parking lot for the high school comes in at as kind of the next big item we need numbers for before we can consider what else we may be able to tackle,” Coy said.

Other business

• Approved district audit findings. The audit did ping a student that had received Medicaid services in the district that did not have a parental consent form on file. That finding caused the district to look at all other parental consent forms, where no other missing information was found.
• The board heard the first reading of a policy that deals with non-school issued personal communication devices. The policy needs to be approved per state law, taking effect July 1. The policy reflects current district enforcement, and if the district later determines stricter enforcement is needed beyond the law, they hold the right to add further restrictions to the policy.
• Gave Wildcat Pride awards to volunteer Chess Club leader Andy Nabor for three years of work with the club and the St. Croix Valley Fusion for winning the State sportsmanship award against all winter sports in the state.
• Approved a 2027 Galapagos student trip.
• Approved the bus driver handbook and letters of employment for certified and support staff.
• Approved the final election canvassing documents. Incumbents Alison Page and Stacy Johnson Myers ran unopposed to retain their seats. Page received 4,322 votes, Johnson Myers received 4,502 votes and write-ins received 390 votes. The board’s reorganizational meeting is April 27.