Westfield School Board Updates Policies Regarding AI, Tutoring

WESTFIELD, NJ — The Westfield Board of Education voted to amend the district’s tutoring services policy to prohibit staff members from providing fee-based evaluations and counseling services to students in the district during its June 25 meeting.

“The amendment is in reference to evaluations or counseling that would potentially be used by a parent as the basis to request a 504 or other referral, and specifically meant to avoid placing staff members into possible professional conflicts as well as possible conflicts of interest,” Board Member Leila Morrelli said at the board's June 11 meeting during the first reading of the policy update, adding that the language was included at the recommendation of board counsel.

Policy 3232 has long stated that a school staff member may be privately contracted to provide tutoring services to a student and goes on to say that “school staff members shall not provide private tutoring services for a fee or any compensation to any student that is currently enrolled in their classes or for any student they must evaluate."

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The amended policy, which the board approved on June 25, adds, “In addition, to avoid placing staff members into possible professional conflicts, as well as possible conflicts of interest, certificated staff members may not provide fee based private evaluation services or counseling services to district students.”

The board also approved on June 25 updated language to the policy governing harassment, intimidation and bullying to include an updated definition of cyberbullying, as well as revisions to the district’s student code of conduct, to keep up with the rapid advances in AI technology.

Morrelli said that Policy 5512 was reviewed by the board’s attorney after the board received emails suggesting changes to board policies to reflect AI-related offenses.

“It was determined that most of these recommendations already existed in the policies or could not be changed because of the language that is mandated by the law,” Morrelli said. “However, upon the recommendation of board counsel, the definition of ‘cyberbullying’ is being revised to include a more explicit reference to including the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology.”

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The board also approved updates to Regulation 5600 — Student Discipline/Code of Conduct — after it was reviewed and updated by the schools’ principals.

According to the June issue of The NEWS Letter, which is shared each month with the school community, revisions were made to expand the infractions in the code of conduct to “ensure that disciplinary actions for the inappropriate use of artificial intelligence can be applied more widely as warranted, particularly regarding violations of academic integrity, in cases of sexual misconduct/sexual harassment and the creation, possession or distribution of obscene or pornographic material.”

Morrelli said that “for intermediate and high school, explicit language was added regarding inappropriate use of artificial intelligence, social media network resources, violations of academic integrity policy, falsely activating a fire alarm or reporting of an emergency, hate speech or biased incident, creation, possession or distribution of obscene or pornographic material, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and inappropriate contact.”

Language also was added to the code of conduct to align with New Jersey’s school recess law.

“The recess detention language was added to align with a recess law stating that recess will be held outside if feasible and a student shall not be denied recess for any reason except as a consequence of a violation of the district’s code of conduct, and that if a student is denied recess, the student shall be provided with restorative justice activities during the recess period,” Morrelli said. “A student may not be denied recess more than twice a week.”

As part of the revised regulation, “the superintendent will establish a process with an annual review and update of the student discipline code of conduct policy and regulation that may involve a committee of parents, students and community members that represent the composition of the district’s schools and community,” Morrelli said.

“The superintendent will report to the board the process used for the annual review and policy of this regulation and will recommend to the board updates, if any, to the student discipline code of conduct policy and regulation.”

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