A group of students is urging lawmakers to establish a task force on artificial intelligence in education to advise districts on how to ensure that students and educators use the technology effectively without becoming overly reliant on it.

The students serve on the General Assembly’s Youth Advisory Council Committee, or COYAC — a joint committee of lawmakers and students that examines policies affecting young people in Colorado. Members bring forward their own policy ideas, presenting them to legislators with the hope that some will be introduced as bills in the upcoming session.

During COYAC’s July 31 meeting, Om, a student from Boulder, told members a story about his friend, who had used the artificial intelligence service ChatGPT to help him write an essay. When the teacher asked his friend to explain what he had written, Om said he couldn’t.

“It wasn’t really his fault in entirety; it was a gap,” the 17-year-old said. “Nobody in the school had set clear expectations for how AI should and shouldn’t be used. Colorado school districts and educators have no state guidance for how to implement AI responsibly, which leaves both students and teachers to figure it out on their own.”

Om and his colleagues proposed establishing an artificial intelligence in education task force housed within the Colorado Department of Education and comprised of educators, administrators, educational technology organizations and students. The task force would be charged with determining how school districts can reap the benefits of artificial intelligence while ensuring students and educators don’t become victims of cognitive offloading, or using technology to reduce mental effort.

Om said the problem starts with the lack of statewide guidance. Each district is left to set its own rules, often without any real framework. That vacuum creates two opposite problems: some students lean too heavily on AI and use it to bypass the thinking their assignments are meant to develop, while others attend schools so cautious about the technology that they graduate without ever learning how to use it. He added that this is just as risky, because the workforce they’re entering is being reshaped by AI at a pace few other technologies have matched.

In the summer of 2024, CDE unveiled its Roadmap for AI in K-12 Education, intended as a resource for school districts as they develop their approaches to integrating artificial intelligence into education.

“At this critical juncture, our schools must adapt and meet this moment with cautious optimism,” wrote Commissioner of Education Susana Cordova and Colorado Education Initiative president and CEO Rebecca Holmes. “The source of our optimism lies in the transformative potential of AI to enhance teaching and learning, empower educators and ultimately improve educational outcomes for all students.”

Several school districts have implemented their own AI policies in recent years, with Denver Public Schools, the state’s largest district, unveiling a new set of AI tools on school-issued devices last spring. Early this year, the district banned the use of ChatGPT for students, saying the decision was made to “prioritize students’ safety and privacy” after the platform enabled a chat feature DPS worried could increase cyberbullying, academic misconduct and over-reliance on artificial intelligence.

The students’ proposed task force would also be charged with establishing ethics and policy guidelines to show students that “AI is a technology to think with, not a replacement for thinking and establish training courses to show teachers how to use AI in the classroom and teach students AI literacy.

California created an artificial intelligence working group within its Department of Education in 2024, becoming the first state to do so. According to CDE, the working group “brings together educators, students, experts, and educational partners to develop guidance and model policy for the safe, equitable, and effective use of AI in schools.”

“Colorado isn’t first here, but we are not too late and that’s exactly the window we should be moving in,” Om said. “I sincerely ask that you consider sponsoring a bill based on this proposal.”