As we roll into the Thanksgiving holiday, I have such deep gratitude for the busy district and charter leaders working tirelessly during challenging times to keep students in school, learning and growing. I hope you get some good rest and rejuvenation this week!

Thank you Kadion Phillips, Director of Informational Technology at Shrewsbury Public Schools, for taking the time to connect and share insights from the tech director perspective in conversation #72. And thank you for the connection, Jim Flanagan.

"As someone new to district leadership in Shrewsbury, I've been focusing on creating a data-rich culture while managing multiple initiatives. The key challenge has been prioritization.

This year, we are fully rolling out PBIS after piloting it last year, and I am consistently seeking better ways to collect social emotional learning (SEL) data to support our work. We recently implemented Open Architects (OA) as our data platform, which has been a game-changer. Some vendors wouldn't share raw data with our team, limiting our ability to run correlational analyses. The OA platform integrates seamlessly with the tried-and-true systems many Massachusetts districts use — PowerSchool, Renaissance, and others — with existing APIs.

The AI conversation has been particularly exciting. Our Superintendent Joe Sawyer led a comprehensive task force including technology staff, teachers, parents, and students. The student voice was invaluable — they shared how they are actually using these tools and the real struggles they are having. We organized around five key themes:

✨AI predictions and needed skills for the future
✨Student classroom tools
✨Staff classroom tools
✨Guardrails and data protection
✨Academic integrity in an AI world

I have learned that extensive professional learning is essential. We can't rely on AI detection tools — they are not reliable enough. Instead, we need to define academic integrity and establish clear guardrails for both staff and students. The real work happens at the classroom level, not just in IT.

We are a little ahead on the AI vetting of apps. Staff have to submit what they want access to, administration supports alignment, and I oversee data privacy checks. One challenge in larger districts is maintaining a strong connection between technology and curriculum teams. My background as a teacher and administrator helps bridge that gap. We are currently evaluating tools like MagicSchool AI, SchoolAI, and Brisk Teaching, with some teachers already experimenting solo ahead of scaling implementation district-wide.

I am particularly proud that we recognize our paraeducators as an integral part of the education experience. They are professional staff and we support them with their own devices and training. These talented individuals represent our pipeline to teaching.

Our next steps involve bringing both our data dashboards and AI implementation to the classroom level. We want to create real-time data visualizations that are accurate and actionable for teachers. And we will begin looking at usage data for which AI tools are most effective for teachers."