Five Questions to Ask Before Your School Buys an AI Tool

AI vendors love a good demo. The avatar smiles, the dashboard glows, and everyone in the room starts imagining the hours saved. Slow down. Before anyone signs anything, get answers to these five questions — in writing.

1. What student data does the tool collect? Names, emails, essays, keystrokes, location? If the vendor can't list it plainly, that's your answer.
2. Where does the data go, and who else can see it? Your school, the vendor, the vendor's subcontractors? Data has a way of traveling.
3. Is the data used to train the vendor's models? "Improving our services" often means your students' work becomes product fuel. Get a clear no, in the contract.
4. How do we get our data back — and delete it? When the contract ends, or a family asks, what happens? "Trust us" is not a deletion policy.
5. What happens in a breach? Who tells whom, how fast, and who pays? If this isn't spelled out, it will be argued about later.

None of these questions is technical. A principal, a teacher, or a parent could ask every one of them. That's the point — vendor diligence is not an IT ritual. It's stewardship.

Put the answers in the contract, not in the sales deck. Demos fade. Paperwork lasts.

I explain frameworks; I don't give legal counsel.