School boards in three Montana communities are working through policy proposals that would set boundaries on how teachers and students interact with artificial intelligence tools, reflecting a broader push to establish rules for technology that has rapidly reshaped classrooms across the country.
Statewide Framework Takes Shape
The Montana School Boards Association, working alongside the Office of Public Instruction and the Montana Digital Academy, released template AI policy language in fall 2025. The boilerplate guidance is designed to give local boards a starting point for crafting their own rules around responsible and equitable use of AI in schools. Lance Melton of MTSBA described the effort as an attempt to help districts navigate both sound educational practice and legal obligations, saying the policy “is meant to serve as a guide for how best to use AI, and also factor in legal student privacy and confidentiality requirements.”
Federal law already imposes data-privacy obligations on schools. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act governs how schools handle student records, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act may apply to health information about students and families — both of which bear on how AI tools can be used in an educational setting.
Three Districts at Different Stages
In Missoula, the county’s public school district is weighing new language in its personnel policy that would regulate teacher use of AI platforms. The draft rules would bar educators from feeding student names, grades, or other identifying information into AI tools, and would limit their use to legitimate educational purposes. The Missoula County Public Schools board is expected to vote on the language at a coming meeting.
Florence-Carlton School District took up the MTSBA template at its May board meeting. Superintendent Todd Fiske proposed a teacher guidance framework built around a zero-to-four scale for gauging appropriate AI use — a practical attempt to give staff clearer direction as the technology shifts. Fiske acknowledged the pace of change is outrunning even updated reference materials, noting that a resource he had been relying on issued a new edition partway through his review: “In the middle of the book read the third edition came out. Which speaks to how rapidly things are changing.”
Stevensville took a more independent approach, forming a local AI task force to conduct its own review before settling on policy language. The board discussed the issue as an informational item and has not yet taken a formal vote, with action anticipated at a later meeting.
Why It Matters
The patchwork of local adoption reflects a challenge common to rural states: statewide guidance can set a baseline, but individual districts often have different resources, priorities, and community expectations. Montana’s approach — offering template language rather than a statewide mandate — places meaningful decisions with elected school boards at the local level.
The question of how AI intersects with student privacy is not unique to Montana. As schools nationwide have moved to integrate AI-assisted learning and administrative tools, concerns about where student data flows and who can access it have prompted calls for clearer guardrails. The districts working through policy adoption in Montana are among the early movers in the state to formalize those boundaries.
Montana’s broader interest in education technology development is not limited to the classroom. The state has been working to position itself as a destination for technology and advanced manufacturing investment — a trend reflected in major economic announcements such as Janicki Industries’ planned $800 million manufacturing campus in Great Falls, which drew attention to the state’s efforts to attract high-tech employers.
What Comes Next
Both Missoula County Public Schools and Stevensville are expected to bring AI policy language to a formal board vote in the coming months. Florence-Carlton’s board will continue refining its approach. Whether additional Montana districts move to adopt MTSBA’s template or develop independent frameworks will likely depend on how quickly the technology continues to evolve — and whether state-level guidance becomes more directive in the sessions ahead.
