About 100 teachers, parents and community members packed a Springfield forum this month to voice alarm over a plan to bring artificial intelligence into city classrooms, an idea that has already been put on hold but is far from dead. The target of their frustration: an AI program from Texas-based Alpha School that was slated to pilot in classrooms at Kiley Prep and John F. Kennedy middle schools before union pushback and other factors forced it onto the shelf.
The Springfield Education Association is now spearheading a petition drive seeking to ban AI in classrooms until more research establishes its short- and long-term effects on students, according to MassLive. Union president Riley Hernandez plans to present a petition to the Springfield School Committee seeking a moratorium on any new student-facing or labor-facing AI technology, and said there simply is not enough data showing that Alpha School-style AI teaching tools actually work for students. Many of the teachers at the meeting said they are concerned Springfield youth are being used as test subjects.
The Alpha School model, developed in Austin, Texas, compresses K-12 core academic coursework into a two-hour daily digital block, with adaptive software standing in for traditional instruction while the rest of the school day shifts to hands-on workshops, according to Alpha School. Instead of certified teachers, the program calls for an adult “guide” to assist students, though the school department had planned to place a licensed teacher in the classroom regardless. Hernandez said AI could not perform everything a teacher does in two hours.
A Pilot Paused by Crisis, Not Just Protest
Springfield schools closed for a week in September after a cyberattack took down the district's computer network, a shutdown that disrupted more than 23,000 students and prompted federal investigators to warn that employee Social Security numbers may have been compromised, as Hoodline reported in its coverage of the cyber shutdown. Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership Co-Executive Director Matthew Brunell told a school committee meeting that the AI pilot was paused because of the cyberattack and will likely not be deployed during the current school year, according to The Reminder. The Springfield Education Association wants that freeze extended indefinitely.
The pilot was never under the direct authority of the Springfield School Committee, which oversees most city schools but not those inside the Empowerment Zone. Kiley Prep and JFK Middle School fall under the Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership, an independent entity formed in 2015 through an agreement among the school district, the state, the teachers union and others, governing 16 schools under its own board. That structure is what allowed SEZP leadership to explore the Alpha School contract without requiring direct school committee sign-off, per the partnership's own account of its governance.
Union, Parents and Students Push Back
State Senator Adam Gomez, who represents Springfield, attended the forum mainly as a father of city students, and at least two school committee members were also present, including Gumersindo Gomez Jr., the senator's brother. Ayanna Crawford, another school committee member, said she opposes having her grandson, a city student, taught by AI because it lacks the social and emotional connection she believes children need.
Teachers and students at the event raised doubts about computers serving as classroom instructors. Jenna Pooler said AI would leave no room for open questions and debate in her AP U.S. History class, while Shaylie Villanueva said classroom discussions with opposing viewpoints carry real educational value that AI would not replicate, and that the technology would not adapt lessons to students' varied learning styles. Caleigh Burton, who teaches mainly kindergarten and elementary students with autism, said her students need interaction with peers and teachers to build social skills. Attendees also asked what would happen to instruction if another cyberattack or computer failure struck the district.
An Academic Voice Questions the Research
Dean Robinson, chair of the political science department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, questioned whether a classroom pilot like Alpha School's would even produce trustworthy findings. He noted that studies of AI technology in education remain limited and are mainly focused on private schools serving children from wealthy families, and said there is no evidence AI will help students across all racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Per Robinson, some studies show that students who use chatbots like ChatGPT in school demonstrate weaker brain engagement and less recall of what they learned. He recommended independent evaluation and publication of results before any expansion of AI technology in classrooms, even as he acknowledged that academics themselves use AI for research and that professors now teach college students how to use the tools effectively and responsibly.
Evelyn Bethea, who has a son in sixth grade, said her son struggled and needed substantial catch-up before he began doing well in school, and that the effects of remote learning during the pandemic continue to affect children today. Statewide test results have shown that students who learned remotely during COVID have not caught up to their pre-pandemic peers, a backdrop Bethea and other parents cited in explaining their wariness toward another sweeping classroom technology shift.
State Lawmakers and Regulators Weigh In
The Springfield dispute has already rippled beyond the city. Massachusetts Teachers Association leadership joined Springfield union officials in late September to call for a statewide moratorium on public school AI contracts and a prohibition on automated tutoring models that replace certified human teachers, according to the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which represents more than 117,000 members statewide. Massachusetts state legislators are separately developing bills to establish AI safeguards in schools and workplaces; pending measures in the current legislative session include House Bill H.614, which would require annual state guidelines for classroom AI use, and a Senate docket proposing a special commission to study AI data privacy, equity and transparency in schools, per BillTrack50.
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education published statewide K-12 AI guidance in August emphasizing that artificial intelligence tools should enhance human instruction rather than replace classroom teachers, while maintaining strict student data privacy standards, according to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Governor Maura Healey announced $1.75 million in state grants this month aimed at helping districts teach students about digital privacy and how to identify AI-generated misinformation, building on the state's broader push around youth digital well-being.
For now, the Alpha School pilot remains on hold in Springfield, with no firm timeline for whether or when it might return to Kiley Prep or JFK Middle School. The Springfield Education Association's petition drive is pressing the school committee to make that pause permanent, while the broader statewide debate over classroom AI plays out in the Legislature and in districts well beyond Springfield's city limits.
