Small Schools, Same Rules

Most AI governance advice assumes you're a large district with a legal team, a data officer, and a procurement office. Meanwhile, thousands of small schools are adopting the same AI tools with one IT person who also fixes the printers.

Here's the small-school version. You don't need enterprise software. You need four things, all free.

One: a list. Every AI tool in the building, who uses it, what student data it touches. A spreadsheet counts.

Two: a one-page policy. What staff may and may not put into AI tools. Keep it to ten sentences teachers will actually read.

Three: the vendor email. Before adopting anything new, email the vendor three questions: what student data do you collect, do you use it to train models, and how do we delete it? Save the reply. That's your due diligence file.

Four: one training session a year. Thirty minutes. Show teachers how to strip names from prompts and where the vetted-tools list lives.

That's it. No consultants, no new hires, no six-figure platforms. The risks don't scale down just because the school is small — student data is student data — but the response can be proportionate.

Big districts buy governance. Small schools can build it with a spreadsheet, a policy, an email habit, and thirty minutes a year. Start there.

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