What this page helps staff do
Recognize when an AI use is moving closer to evaluation, recommendation, or protected information and needs a slower, more deliberate process.
Use AI Carefully
Some uses require stronger safeguards, clearer review roles, and more restraint.
These uses are not automatically off-limits, but they should not be treated casually.
What still requires human review
Whether the task should use AI at all, whether the tool is appropriate, and whether the output could shape a student's opportunities unfairly.
IEP-related language
Drafting may be possible, but final language must stay under human control and team review.
Prompt used
This prompt uses a fictional student profile to model the goal-drafting process without sharing a real record. Final goals must reflect actual assessment and observation data, student priorities, and team decision-making.
A transition-program student wants to work in food service. During a familiar work routine, the student can follow a visual checklist independently. When a task changes or the student is unsure what to do next, the student often waits for an adult rather than asking a supervisor or job coach for clarification.
Create three possible annual IEP goal options focused on self-advocacy and task initiation in a work setting.
For each option:
- Use observable, measurable language.
- Include a condition, student action, and criterion.
- Keep the goal appropriate for workplace learning.
- Do not invent assessment data, services, accommodations, or a disability label.
- Add one short note describing what real baseline data a team would need before finalizing the goal.
These are drafting options only. The IEP team must revise the final goal using actual student data, student preferences, and professional judgment.Draft output
This sample shows the kind of options the prompt may produce. It is not a final IEP goal, and the comparison note also requires team review.
Option 1: Asking for clarification
Annual goal: Given a work task and access to the established workplace routine, when the student encounters an unfamiliar task, change in routine, or is unsure what to do next, the student will ask an appropriate workplace support person for clarification or assistance before waiting for adult direction in 4 out of 5 observed opportunities across 3 consecutive work sessions.
Baseline data needed: Frequency with which the student currently asks for clarification independently versus waits for someone to provide direction.
Option 2: Initiating a next step
Annual goal: Given a familiar work setting and established task expectations, when the student completes a task or reaches a point where the next step is unclear, the student will independently initiate an appropriate next action by consulting the available task information or asking an appropriate workplace support person within 2 minutes in 80% of observed opportunities across 3 consecutive work sessions.
Baseline data needed: Current response after task completion or uncertainty, including typical wait time and how often the student initiates a next step without adult prompting.
Option 3: Workplace problem-solving sequence
Annual goal: When the student encounters a change, problem, or uncertainty during a work task, the student will initiate a workplace problem-solving response by checking available task information and, if the answer is not available, asking an appropriate workplace support person for clarification, with no more than one adult prompt in 4 out of 5 observed opportunities across 3 consecutive work sessions.
Baseline data needed: The student's current level of independence with each part of the sequence: recognizing uncertainty, checking available information, and seeking clarification.
Review note: Option 3 may be a strong transition-focused starting point because it includes both independent use of available resources and appropriate help-seeking. The team must still decide which option best fits the student's actual performance data, preferences, and workplace context.
Student data summaries
This includes present levels, qualitative work evaluations, transition assessment narratives, and other summaries based on real student records. Even when names are removed, these summaries may still contain indirect identifiers or details that could make a student recognizable, so they belong in a slower, more careful category.
Initial prompt: stop and revise
This prompt would be blocked by the privacy screen because it includes initials, age, disability, school, and city/state details.
“Summarize the work-evaluation notes for J.D., a 19-year-old student with an intellectual disability at Free State High School in Lawrence, Kansas. He completed a work experience at a local cafeteria and needs extra processing time when learning new tasks.”
Prompt used
This version keeps the observations that matter for instruction while removing student-specific details.
Use the following generalized work-evaluation notes to organize a draft summary.
Notes:
- Completes familiar multi-step tasks after a visual model.
- Asks for clarification when a task changes.
- Benefits from a brief written checklist when learning a new routine.
- Is building independence with starting the next task after completing the previous one.
Organize the notes under:
1. Observed strengths
2. Support needs
3. Questions for the team to considerDraft output
This sample shows how the prompt may organize the generalized notes. It is a draft for team review, not a final present-level statement or evaluation summary.
Observed strengths
Follows familiar multi-step routines after a visual model and asks for clarification when a task changes.
Support needs
May benefit from a brief written checklist when learning a new routine and is building independence with identifying and beginning the next task.
Questions for the team
What supports are most effective when routines change? What baseline data would help define independence with starting the next task?
Transition assessment summaries
Transition assessments often contain interests, support needs, work history, goals, and community details. A student name is not the only identifier: a named employer, school, provider, or distinctive job history can still make a student recognizable.
Initial prompt: stop and revise
Do not paste a student's assessment response with named work sites, schools, service providers, or other details that could identify them. This is true even when the student's name is removed.
“Summarize this student's transition assessment. They worked at [named restaurant], receive services from [named provider], and want to work at [named hospital]. They attend [named high school].”
Prompt used
Keep only information the educator needs to organize for review. Replace named settings with general categories and ask the tool to stay within the supplied information.
Organize the following generalized transition-assessment responses into a draft summary for educator review.
Responses:
- Interested in food service and health-care support work.
- Has completed community-based work experiences in a restaurant and a health-care setting.
- Prefers learning by watching a model, trying the task, and using a short written checklist.
- Wants to practice speaking with supervisors and asking for clarification when routines change.
- Is interested in learning more about transportation options for getting to work.
Use these headings:
1. Interests and preferences
2. Work and learning strengths
3. Support needs and skills to develop
4. Questions for the student and team
Do not add information, infer a disability, recommend a placement or service, or make conclusions beyond these responses. This is an organized draft for educator and student review.Draft output
This is an organizational starting point, not an interpretation of the assessment or a final transition plan.
Interests and preferences
Interested in food service and health-care support work. Interested in learning more about transportation options for getting to work.
Work and learning strengths
Has experience in restaurant and health-care settings. Prefers learning through a model, hands-on practice, and a short written checklist.
Support needs and skills to develop
Wants to practice speaking with supervisors and asking for clarification when routines change.
Questions for the student and team
Which parts of food service or health-care support work are most appealing? What transportation options are realistic and available? What workplace supports have been effective during work experiences?
Never use AI for this
Placement recommendations
Do not ask AI to determine, rank, or recommend a student's placement, services, program, eligibility, or readiness for an opportunity.
Those decisions require the student's voice, valid information, professional judgment, and the appropriate team process. AI can help an educator organize a generalized agenda or explain a process, but it must not be used to steer the decision itself.
Never use AI for this
Student-facing chatbots
Do not direct students to a general-purpose or companion chatbot for individualized transition guidance, self-advocacy coaching, emotional support, or decisions about work, services, or adult life.
These conversations can be unreliable, may invite personal disclosure, and can blur the student’s relationship with an educator, counselor, job coach, or trusted adult. Students need a real person who can understand context, respond responsibly, and follow through.
Read: IES on K-12 AI guardrails and EDSAFE guidance for AI companions in education.
Stored prompts, chats, and notebooks
Storage is not automatically a reason to avoid a tool. It is a reason to know what the tool keeps and whether the district has approved that specific use.
Before entering any student-related information, staff should be able to answer:
- Are prompts, uploads, and outputs retained, and for how long?
- Who can view, share, export, or administer that content?
- Is the content used to train or improve an AI model?
- Is this a district-managed core service, an additional service, or a consumer tool?
Read: Google’s distinction between Education Core and Additional Services and the U.S. Department of Education’s online-tool terms checklist.
Next step
Ready to draft?
The AI Drafting Lab helps you turn a general or de-identified situation into a more deliberate prompt. It does not make a sensitive use automatically appropriate; staff still need to confirm that the tool, information, and purpose are approved and appropriate.
Open the AI Drafting LabStop and check
If the task involves identifiable student information, recommendations about a student, or anything that could shape services or placements, pause and verify the safeguards, approval path, and review responsibility first.
- Do not paste protected records into a tool by default.
- Do not assume “de-identified” only means removing the student's name.
- Do not paste narrative details that could still point back to a specific student, school, class, family, or work site.
- Do not use AI to quietly narrow placement or service options.
- Do not treat generated recommendations as if they came from the team.
District-provided AI
Questions to ask before using a district-provided AI tool
Access does not automatically tell staff which data uses the district has approved. Before entering identifiable student information, ask:
- Am I using the district-managed education version with my staff account?
- Has the district approved identifiable student information for this specific purpose?
- What uses are allowed, limited, or prohibited?
- What privacy, retention, access, and data-loss-prevention controls apply?
- Who can answer questions when a use falls into a gray area?
Google states that Gemini used with a Google Workspace for Education account has enterprise-grade protections: chats and uploaded files are not reviewed by humans or used to improve generative AI models. That may support a district-approved use, but it does not replace local policy, a legitimate educational purpose, minimum-necessary information, or human review.
Read: Google's education data-handling guidance and U.S. Department of Education guidance on online tools and FERPA.
Safer version
Use AI to organize or summarize genuinely de-identified, minimal notes in an approved tool for drafting support only.
Use carefully version
If the summary is based on a real student's record and could still point back to that student, treat it as a careful-use task, not a routine-safe use.
Concrete example
Initials are not enough on their own
Even in a district-approved tool, replacing a student's name with initials does not automatically make a prompt safe. Details such as a disability, a particular job site, a teacher, a school, or an unusual set of needs can still make the student recognizable to people who know the context.
Still too identifying
“J.D. is an 18-year-old at Lincoln High with an intellectual disability. He needs extra processing time while learning tasks at the Green Street Cafe. Summarize his work evaluation.”
Safer starting point
De-identified notes: “Completes familiar multi-step tasks independently after a visual model. Asks for clarification when a task changes. Benefits from a brief written checklist when learning a new routine.”
Prompt: “Organize these notes into strengths, support needs, and next instructional questions for a draft work-evaluation summary. Do not make recommendations or conclusions.”
Use only the minimum information needed, follow district approval and policy, and review the draft against the original record before using it. An approved tool may allow specific student information under local rules, but approval is not blanket permission to paste every detail from a record.