Standards, Law & Compliance Crosswalk

Irvington Township School District — AI in Education

⚠️ Read this first. This document summarizes public sources for **professional
learning purposes**. It is not legal advice. Before adopting any policy, contracting any
tool, or taking action on a specific student matter, confirm with district counsel and
the district's data-privacy officer / records custodian.

⚠️ A naming correction worth making early

Staff and vendors in New Jersey often say "SIPA" — Student Information Privacy Act —
when discussing student data rules. There is a real risk of confusing **two different
New Jersey laws**, and they do very different things:

**When someone says "we need to be SIPA-compliant," the operative statute for classroom
ed-tech decisions is P.L. 2019, c.494.** Confirm the intended reference before drafting
policy language, because citing the wrong chapter in a Board document is an avoidable error.

1. Student Data Privacy — P.L. 2019, c.494

The short version for teachers: *Don't put student data into a tool the district hasn't
vetted. The district has to have an agreement with the vendor. That's the law, not a preference.*

Who it regulates

An "operator" — the operator of an online education service, with actual knowledge that
the service is used primarily for K-12 school purposes and is designed and marketed for
K-12 school purposes.

Important nuance for AI: a general-purpose consumer chatbot is generally not
designed and marketed for K-12 purposes, so it may fall outside the operator definition —
which means the statute's protections may not attach to it at all. That is an argument
for more caution with general consumer tools, not less. The safe teacher-level rule is
the same either way: no student data in unvetted tools.

What "covered information" includes

Personally identifiable information created by or provided to an operator by students,
parents/guardians, or school employees, or gathered through operation of the service, that
is not publicly available — including names, addresses, contact details, **educational
records, test results, medical records, biometric data, and geolocation.**

What operators are prohibited from doing

• Engaging in targeted advertising based on information acquired through K-12 use of

the service — on that service or anywhere else

• Selling or renting covered information (limited exceptions)
• Building profiles of students for non-educational purposes
• Disclosing covered information outside specified permitted purposes

Violation is an unlawful practice under New Jersey's Consumer Fraud Act.

What the district can require

• Deletion of covered information on district request
• Contractual terms directing permitted research use

What this means operationally

The teacher-level rule, stated plainly

If it would identify a student, it does not go into an AI tool.
De-identify instead: "a 7th grader struggling with fractions who gives up quickly"
produces the same useful output as a name, with none of the exposure.

2. Information Literacy Mandate — P.L. 2022, c.138 (S588)

Signed January 4, 2023. New Jersey became the first state in the nation to require
K-12 information literacy instruction.

What it requires

• NJDOE develops New Jersey Student Learning Standards in information literacy
• Every district incorporates information literacy instruction K-12 as part of its

NJSLS implementation

• School library media specialists are to be included in developing that curriculum

wherever possible

Statutory definition of information literacy

A set of skills that enables an individual to recognize when information is needed and to
locate, evaluate, and effectively use the needed information — including **digital,
visual, media, textual, and technological** literacy.

Why this is the single most useful lever in this entire document

**AI literacy is not an unfunded extra. It is the current form of a legal requirement
Irvington already has.**

Teaching students to evaluate AI output — Is this true? Where did it come from? What was
fabricated? Who benefits from this framing? — is exactly "recognize when information is
needed and locate, evaluate, and effectively use it," applied to the information source
students now use most.

Practical consequences:

• Time spent on AI literacy is standards-aligned instructional time, not a detour
• It gives a clean answer to "where does this fit in an already-full curriculum?"
• Bring the library media specialists into this work formally. The statute names them,

and they are typically the staff most prepared for source-evaluation instruction. They
should co-lead the student-facing AI literacy lesson in the 61–90 day window.

3. New Jersey Student Learning Standards Alignment

9.4 — Life Literacies and Key Skills (NJSLS–CLKS, 2020)

The 2020 standards folded the former 8.1 Educational Technology content into 9.4 and
expanded it. This is the primary home for AI literacy.

8.1 / 8.2 — Computer Science & Design Thinking (2020)

**Verify exact performance-expectation codes and wording against the current NJSLS
documents at nj.gov/education/standards before publishing curriculum documents.** Strand
codes are stable; individual PE numbering and text should be confirmed against the source
rather than quoted from a training deck. The NJSLS-CLKS standards were under State Board
review as recently as late 2025 — check for revisions.

4. NJDOE Guidance on AI

The NJDOE Office of Innovation maintains AI guidance for K-12
(nj.gov/education/innovation/ai/), developed in part through a partnership with TeachAI.
The state has also funded an AI Innovation in Education Grant program supporting both
Teaching with AI and Teaching about AI — worth reviewing as a funding path for the
follow-through work in this framework.

NJDOE's stated principles for responsible K-12 AI use

1. Build AI literacy before tool use
2. Keep humans central — AI output is a starting point, not a conclusion
3. Input quality matters — clearer prompts produce better results
4. Provoke thought rather than simply request answers
5. Treat it as assistance — verify facts independently
6. Use it as a bridge to overcome skills gaps
7. Reflect on impact on learning and engagement
8. Prioritize process over final products in assessment

How the Irvington framework maps to NJDOE principles

Use this table in the deck. When a skeptical teacher or a Board member asks *"is this
just Irvington's opinion?"* — no. Every pillar maps to a published state principle.

5. Federal Law — Brief Notes

6. Compliance Checklist for District Leadership

Hand this to counsel, the technology director, and the data-privacy officer.

Before any AI tool reaches a classroom

• Is it designed/marketed for K-12 purposes? (Determines whether P.L. 2019, c.494 operator duties attach)
• Signed data agreement covering deletion, non-sale, no targeted advertising, no non-educational profiling
• Minimum age in vendor terms vs. the grade bands that will use it (COPPA / 13+ issue)
• Is student work used to train the vendor's models? Can that be turned off in writing?
• Data retention and deletion-on-request mechanics documented
• Breach-notification obligations specified
• Accessibility conformance for students with disabilities
• Added to the published approved-tool list (teachers cannot comply with a list they can't see)

Policy artifacts to produce

• Board-adopted AI use policy (NJSBA has published a model policy — start there)
• Student-facing AI expectations, in student-readable language
• Family communication explaining the traffic-light system
• Academic integrity code updated to address AI explicitly — **including a provision

that a detector score alone is not sufficient grounds for a disciplinary finding**

• Staff guidance on de-identification
• Device extension-management policy

Equity safeguards — do not skip

• Written rule: no disciplinary action based solely on an AI-detector score
• Documented appeal path for a student who disputes an AI accusation
• Track AI-related integrity referrals by subgroup. If false positives concentrate in

the multilingual-learner population — which the research predicts — **that is a civil
rights issue, and you want to have found it yourself.**

• Device and connectivity access reviewed before assigning AI-dependent work at home
• Ensure Red/Yellow/Green assignments don't create an advantage for students with

home devices over those without

7. Talking Points

"Is AI even allowed in New Jersey schools?"
Yes. The NJDOE publishes guidance supporting responsible classroom use and has funded
district AI pilots through a state grant program. The question is not whether, but how.

"Aren't we legally required to ban it?"
No. There is no such requirement. There are requirements around student data privacy
(P.L. 2019, c.494) and an affirmative requirement to teach information literacy K-12
(P.L. 2022, c.138) — which AI literacy directly serves.

"Where does AI literacy fit in an already-full curriculum?"
It's already required. Information literacy is mandated K-12, and evaluating AI output is
information literacy in its current form. It maps to NJSLS 9.4.x.IML, 9.4.x.DC, and
8.1.x.IC — it is not an add-on.

"Can I use ChatGPT to write report card comments?"
Not with student names or record data. De-identify first, verify every word, and remember
that the comment goes out under your name and your professional judgment. Check the
district's approved-tool list before using anything for work products connected to students.

"A detector said 94% AI. Isn't that proof?"
No. Detector scores are probabilistic, they produce false positives that fall
disproportionately on multilingual writers, and they are defeated in one click by freely
available tools. Use it as a private signal to go look at process evidence — version
history, the September baseline, a two-minute conversation. Never as the basis of an
accusation.

Sources

• P.L. 2019, c.494 (A4978) — online education services and student educational records
• P.L. 2022, c.138 (S588) — K-12 information literacy
• Governor's office — first-in-the-nation K-12 information literacy legislation
• P.L. 2023, c.266 (S332) — NJ Data Privacy Act
• NJDOE Office of Innovation — Artificial Intelligence
• NJDOE — Career Readiness, Life Literacies, and Key Skills (9.2 / 9.4)
• NJSLS–CLKS standards document (2020)
• NJDOE — Computer Science & Design Thinking standards
• NJDOE — resources to help schools use AI for teaching and learning (June 2024)
• NJSBA — model policy on using AI in schools
• NJDOE — AI Innovation in Education Grant awards (2025)