Board uses artificial intelligence in superintendent search

At their March 17 meeting, Magdalena School board members embraced artificial intelligence capabilities to help with policy development and their superintendent search.

Magdalena school board members and staff held an open discussion on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools.

“We got to start thinking about policy that we need to have because (AI) it’s being used. Kids are using it, teachers are using it, admins are using it, everybody’s using it,” Kelby Stephens, board member, said, “And so I think it’s just time to have an open conversation,”

Stephens said he attended AI training presented by a former superintendent and information technology professional. He said AI is a powerful tool but also potentially dangerous if not used responsibly. He believed setting clear parameters and guidelines with a policy was important.

He said the instructors suggested trying AI to create a school policy on AI, which Stephens did and presented to the board.

“I’m not saying that this is the policy that we need. In fact, it says at the end, make sure that you send it to your lawyers and they read through it and all that stuff. But I thought I had some great information,” Stephens said.

High School Principal Chris Backstrom spoke to the challenges of regulating AI use in classrooms, especially in subjects like math and English. He said that around 2015, students started using an app called Photomath, which allows them to take a picture of a math problem and get the answer.

He said most teachers can recognize AI because they know their students’ abilities. Often, AI-generated material will have word usage and vocabulary that are red flags for teachers.

“(AI) It’s a good thing too. It’s helping teachers out with lesson planning, with ideas, making their jobs easier, too,” Backstrom said.

Superintendent work session

During the work session on the hiring of the superintendent process, Major read all the 59 comments they received from the community survey.

Themes that emerged included a preference for a superintendent with academic focus, strong leadership, staff management, communication and cultural sensitivity. Many comments said the new superintendent should have experience in a rural school district but with no personal ties to the current staff or school board.

“I just thought the public deserved to hear that,” Major said, “I want to try to be fair, impartial, transparent. That’s why I just got done reading 59 comments because I think it’s important that we include everyone.”

Rachel Montoya moved to use the survey responses as the community committee in the hiring process.

“So we don’t have a specific elite group that is just the community as a whole as part of the committee so that this is the committee,” Montoya said.

The board debated whether to have a committee of staff and community members or use all the survey comments submitted to guide their hiring decision.

Stephens said he was in favor of the committee of staff and community members and did not want to use the survey in its place.

“The most important process is that community. Because if you want buy in from the people that are going to be working underneath them, they need to be a part of that filter, a part of that process. And it’s not just filling out a question and answering the question; it’s actually asking questions to the individuals who are who are applying for the position,” Stephens said

Bret Brunton agreed and felt the committee would help filter and narrow down candidates for the board to interview.

Major said their lawyer recommended not to have a committee that the board’s main responsibility is the hiring of a superintendent. In her research, she found articles that said a physical committee could cause unintentional bias in the hiring process.

“What it’s saying is you inadvertently create bias by creating a committee because we’re picking a few people out of the entire community,” Major said. “I was through the last process too, and we had bumps in the road at the last one when we had the committee; there was actually a lot of heat.”

She said that during the last superintendent hiring, a petition went around regarding an applicant who didn’t get an interview.

“It got personal, and that’s the thing I don’t want to do this time,” Major said.

The board had a split vote with Montoya, Mayor and Sharon Harris in favor of using the survey and Bruton and Kelby against.

Montoya presented AI generated questions for the superintendent interviews.

“I took the liberty of using AI and generated some questions from the survey. So that takes everyone who’s given the survey and given us feedback. This kind of is a summarization,” Montoya said.

The board went through the questions and made adjustments.

The application window ends on March 30. Board members agreed to have a work session on March 31 with their top ten candidates. They agreed to avoid Zoom interviews and to also host a meet-and-greet and allow community members to comment again during that time.