Thurmond urges responsible classroom AI use at California education summit

California’s education department encouraged schools to incorporate AI responsibly at a Sacramento summit, while Superintendent Tony Thurmond warned against letting the technology substitute for learning. The gathering brought educators, students and technology companies into a discussion about using AI to support instruction without sacrificing student privacy, safety or teachers’ authority over classroom decisions.

Thurmond convened the AI & Education Innovation Summit: Moving the Needle for California Students on November 9, 2026, according to the department’s official release. School district leaders, teachers, students, information technology staff and industry representatives joined the event, which examined both potential classroom uses and the safeguards those uses require.

The immediate concern was not simply whether students would encounter AI. Thurmond said some had already used it to circumvent learning. Educators and policymakers, he argued, need to learn how to incorporate the tools for students’ benefit without giving them a reason to stop thinking, writing or researching.

A case for use, with conditions

The summit explored how emerging technologies might support literacy and mathematics instruction and prepare students for a changing workforce. Those possibilities were discussed alongside student privacy, safety, equitable access and educators’ role—not as a separate conversation about technology adoption alone.

Participants included representatives from Microsoft, Nvidia and Google, alongside education-focused organizations such as Digital Promise, Amira Learning, Carnegie Learning and Curriculum Associates. Thurmond’s stated position placed conditions on classroom adoption: student safety and privacy must be protected, and human connections must remain part of education.

We must be thoughtful about when and how these tools are used, ensure educators remain at the center of instructional decisions, and demand evidence that technology is actually improving student outcomes.

Tony Thurmond, in the California Department of Education’s summit release

The risk of leaving students out

Access raised a different concern. Casey Cuny, a 2024 California Teacher of the Year, warned that vulnerable students could be kept from using AI while children in wealthier suburbs learned to master it. His comments appeared in EdSource’s summit coverage, republished by The Mendocino Voice on November 14.

Cuny is also the founder and CEO of Whit.ai, an app focused on integrating technology into education. His warning put equitable access alongside the learning and privacy concerns raised at the event: restricting students’ use carries its own potential cost, in his view.

Some classroom experimentation is already underway. Sonal Patel, program director for digital learning at the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, said students at Fontana Unified School District had been using AI tools to support peer education in math. She offered that example while describing districts already incorporating AI into K–12 classrooms.

Patel described districts weighing data privacy and the instructional value of access. The distinction she drew was between guided learning that builds a student’s thinking and a tool that simply delivers answers. That concern focuses on how students use AI, rather than access alone.

Guidance exists; statewide policy work continues

Thurmond said the department had already released guidance on safe and effective classroom AI use. He also said AI would never replace a teacher, while stressing that state officials and school leaders must prevent misuse and abuse. The summit therefore sat alongside existing guidance, rather than introducing the topic to schools for the first time.

A separate statewide policy process provides the next step. Senate Bill 1288, sponsored by Thurmond, established an AI working group charged with developing guidance and a model policy for local educational agencies. Its work covers student privacy, data security, academic integrity and AI’s appropriate role in teaching and learning.