The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly shifting the landscape of education, presenting both unprecedented opportunities and novel challenges for K-12 institutions. Across Michigan, a wave of innovation is taking shape as K-12 schools, districts, and ISDs explore how to use AI thoughtfully to enhance student learning, empower educators, and prepare for a tech-forward future. While challenges remain, the proactive and collaborative efforts unfolding across the state offer a hopeful and strategic view of what’s possible.
Michigan Virtual has partnered with districts to facilitate this learning journey, not by prescribing solutions, but by helping schools build the internal capacity to lead their own efforts. From professional learning communities to district-wide task forces, these case studies highlight how Michigan schools are putting students first while approaching AI integration with both curiosity and care.
Livingston County: Forging a County-Wide Path for AI in Education
The Livingston Educational Service Agency (LESA) is taking bold, coordinated action to prepare its schools for the age of AI. With districts across the county operating at various levels of readiness, LESA recognized an opportunity to unite stakeholders and ensure every district had a voice in the process. To do this, they launched a county-wide AI task force that included a diverse mix of central administrators, building leaders, and classroom educators from all five districts.
From February to December 2024, Michigan Virtual supported this initiative by facilitating monthly task force meetings. These sessions went beyond routine updates. They created a focused space for district leaders and educators to build their understanding of AI and consider its role in teaching and learning. Each district team completed a self-assessment to evaluate their readiness and establish a baseline, setting the stage for thoughtful planning. Over time, these conversations evolved into the development of customized AI vision statements for each district, anchoring their work in local context and priorities.
By fall 2024, the task force had transitioned from planning to action. Each district identified its top priorities, ranging from staff training and policy development to student AI literacy and curriculum planning. This allowed for a highly personalized approach, where districts could focus their energy on what mattered most to their schools.
Looking ahead, LESA is shifting into a more distributed model with the creation of an “AI Network” in spring 2025. This next phase will be powered by district-level champions who will work directly with students and continue piloting AI strategies in classrooms. It represents a hands-on, sustainable evolution of the initial planning work—one where educators become practitioners of what they’ve learned.
Notably, LESA is also thinking beyond the school walls. Their co-sponsorship of a Parent Summit on AI, featuring speakers from both LESA and Michigan Virtual, signals a broader commitment to community engagement. By bringing families into the conversation, LESA is laying the groundwork for transparency, trust, and long-term impact.
Their story demonstrates how a collaborative, systems-level approach—with room for local flexibility—can create the conditions for meaningful and lasting AI integration across an entire county.
Westwood: A Focused Approach to AI Integration Through Strategic Task Force Development
Westwood Community Schools is taking a hands-on, purposeful approach to AI integration, led by the district’s Curriculum Director. Recognizing the transformative potential of AI, the district is leading the charge by assembling a dedicated task force. This proactive step underscores the district’s commitment to systematically exploring and implementing AI technologies.
To support this early work, Michigan Virtual partnered with the district to design a foundational staff survey. This assessment helped determine educators’ starting points—their familiarity with AI tools and their comfort levels using them. The responses informed the task force’s initial planning and ensured their strategy was grounded in real-time insights from the people who would ultimately put it into practice.
Westwood launched the 2024–25 school year by setting the tone early: an all-staff professional development day on AI, facilitated by Michigan Virtual. With energy and direction in place, the task force then codified its core goals, backed by measurable outcomes. Among them: achieving baseline AI literacy for 80% of staff, which the district defined as using three different AI tools and writing effective prompts; developing a clear and comprehensive set of AI use guidelines to present to district leadership by the end of the year; and ensuring that at least one-third of staff are actively integrating AI into instruction or administrative work.
Equity is another pillar of Westwood’s plan. The district is intentional about ensuring that all students and educators—not just early adopters—have access to the tools and training they need. To keep momentum strong, Westwood is scheduling regular task force meetings and offering monthly learning opportunities. Feedback loops are built into the process, allowing the district to stay nimble, responsive, and aligned with its long-term goals.
Grosse Pointe: Cultivating Internal Expertise with an AI Learning Council
Grosse Pointe Public School System (GPPSS) is tackling the challenge of AI in education by building knowledge from the inside out. Instead of starting with a top-down plan or one-size-fits-all solution, the district chose to create an AI Learning Council that reflects the voices of its own school community. Led by the Executive Director of Learning, Technology & Strategic Relations, this group includes teachers, administrators, and community members—bringing together a variety of perspectives to shape their shared understanding of AI.
The primary focus of the AI Learning Council is to engage in ongoing learning and robust discussions around what GPPSS’s specific approach to AI will entail. This internal focus suggests a desire for the district to develop a vision for AI integration that is deeply rooted in its own context, values, and educational goals. Notably, Grosse Pointe takes a highly self-directed approach to this learning process. District leadership independently plans and delivers almost all of the council’s sessions, demonstrating a strong sense of ownership and a wealth of internal capacity. These internally developed sessions are thoughtfully aligned with the domains of Michigan Virtual‘s comprehensive integration framework. This alignment indicates that while Grosse Pointe is leading its own learning, it is still grounding its efforts in promising practices and a recognized structure for considering the various facets of AI integration. Additionally, a district-wide professional learning opportunity on AI will be offered in the spring of 2025 to further build foundational understanding among staff.
While Grosse Pointe values its self-directed learning approach, they also know when to tap into external expertise. Michigan Virtual serves as a sounding board, offering feedback and resources to support the Council’s work. It’s a thoughtful blend of independence and collaboration that’s helping the district make informed, locally driven decisions about AI integration.
Ann Arbor: Embracing a Student-Centered Approach to AI Adoption
Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) is placing students at the center of its journey into AI. Instead of beginning with policy or tools, the district has focused on understanding how AI can directly benefit student learning and classroom engagement. That vision began taking shape during the 2023–24 school year, when the Director of Instructional Technology and two Instructional Technology Consultants launched an AI Study Group. The goal was simple: explore, learn, and gain firsthand experience with emerging AI technologies. This exploratory phase gave educators space to experiment and understand the real-world potential—and limits—of these tools before crafting a formal plan.
Now, in 2024–25, the district is channeling those lessons into a comprehensive, student-centered AI strategy. This explicit focus on the student perspective suggests that Ann Arbor is prioritizing how AI can directly enhance student learning, engagement, and overall educational experiences. To ensure that this plan truly reflects the needs and voices of students, AAPS is carrying out a number of different activities, including the formation of student panels, providing a platform for students to share their perspectives and insights on AI; convening a community task force to collaboratively identify the guiding principles and core beliefs that will underpin the district’s approach to AI; establishing an AI action research team, empowering educators to investigate the impact of AI in their own classrooms; the official adoption of paid AI tools that have demonstrated value in the initial experimentation phase; and the provision of targeted professional learning opportunities for staff to equip them with the skills and knowledge needed to effectively integrate AI in a student-centered manner.
While AAPS is taking the lead and building strong internal capacity, the district continues to collaborate with Michigan Virtual for guidance and expertise when needed. This approach—locally driven, but thoughtfully supported—ensures that Ann Arbor’s work remains grounded, student-focused, and sustainable as the role of AI in schools continues to evolve.
What’s Next?
As these stories show, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to bringing AI into schools. Some districts are launching large-scale initiatives across an entire county, while others are starting small with tightly focused teams. But across the board, what stands out is the commitment to learning together, making intentional choices, and prioritizing both educator and student needs.
In Part 2, we’ll continue this journey with stories from Chelsea, Hartland, St. Clair County, and Wyoming—districts building their own blueprints for AI integration and setting the stage for what’s next as new collaborations take shape.
