Tucked inside Ohio’s freshly signed two-year operating budget is a first-of-its-kind requirement: every K–12 public school must adopt a policy on the classroom use of artificial intelligence by July 1, 2026. To keep districts from starting from scratch, lawmakers ordered the Ohio Department of Education & Workforce to publish a model policy no later than December 31, giving local boards, including Galion area school systems, roughly 18 months to tailor and approve their own rules.
What the policies must cover
Although the state template is still on the drawing board, legislators spelled out the broad contours. Local policies will need to explain how AI tools can be used for instruction, protect student data and privacy, spell out academic-integrity safeguards, and outline staff training and support. Districts may adopt the state model word-for-word or customize it to reflect local priorities such as equity, special-education needs, or existing technology programs.
How districts are preparing
Some large urban systems—Columbus City Schools and Worthington among them—have already convened task forces of teachers, tech directors, and student representatives to draft pilot guidelines. Rural and smaller suburban districts are banding together through regional service centers to share legal advice and professional-development resources. Administrators say the dual deadlines (AI rules by 2026 and a separate cellphone-ban policy by January 2026) are accelerating conversations that, until now, had been scattered.
Countdown to July 1, 2026
- December 31, 2025 – state model policy released
- January–June 2026 – local boards hold public hearings, revise drafts, train staff
- July 1, 2026 – all district AI policies take effect in classrooms statewide
By forcing every school system to think through the promise and pitfalls of tools like ChatGPT, the legislature hopes to move AI from an academic-integrity headache to a classroom asset—and to give Ohio students a head start mastering technologies that will shape their future careers.
