Digital Wellness Night Highlights a Balanced Approach to AI
Artificial intelligence is not a distant concept for students at King School. It is a tool to enhance rather than replace learning and a topic of serious reflection. That reality took center stage at King’s fourth Digital Wellness community event, “AI at Home: What Families Need to Know to Support Student Learning,” an evening designed to help families understand the reality of AI at school and at home.
Held in the Upper School Library Learning Commons, the February 17 program offered families clarity, guidance, and practical strategies as AI becomes increasingly integrated into students’ lives. Through a panel discussion, the evening highlighted King’s balanced approach to technology, one that recognizes the growing role of artificial intelligence.
Head of School Carol Maoz opened the session by framing AI as part of the school’s broader educational mission. “This evening, we want to showcase the school's positive, balanced mindset, which evaluates the strengths and the limitations of artificial intelligence. King School has been actively exploring the pedagogical uses of generative AI ever since OpenAI first released ChatGPT to the public in November 2022. Why? It's our mission to prepare students for a rapidly changing world. “
Digital Wellness Coordinator Daniel Block moderated a panel featuring students, alumni, faculty, and parents. He explained how King approaches AI use within clear academic parameters. “At King, we have a red light, green light, yellow light system for instructor permission. Students use AI with instructor permission because there have always been parameters around appropriate aid. When it is appropriate to work with a parent, to work with a sibling, to work with a classmate, or to go online. Artificial Intelligence is the same thing.”
Block also introduced the Stop, Investigate, Find, and Trace (SIFT) framework to help families evaluate digital content. The process encourages people to pause before accepting what they see, examine the credibility of the source sharing the content, look for other versions or stronger coverage for comparison, and trace the image back to its original source and context. The goal, Block noted, is to move away from automatically consuming digital content and instead engage with it critically.
Faculty members on the panel emphasized that the goal is to develop discernment and integrity alongside technical skill. Innovation Lab Coordinator Mike Fischtal explained that AI serves as a tool to support hands-on work in the lab. Robotics students use it to help with coding or physics questions, so they can spend more time building and testing. “AI is there to just make that easier.”
Middle school English teacher Jordan Rochelson addressed the ethical dimension of AI use and how he approaches this with his students. Rochelson stated that he has full confidence in his students' desire to learn and grow, rather than to cut corners. “If you do cheat, if you do use this in a way that is in violation of our standards, the only person you are letting down is yourself here.”
Sue Laramie, Middle School Computer Science faculty member, underscored the need for critical evaluation. “Even if you give the best prompts, what you get, you still have to have that critical thinking aspect. You can't just take it for face value.”
The panel also included alumnus Ryan Heaton ’21, President and Founder of Charon Labs, a small AI research and development company that builds artificial intelligence systems meant to help people with everyday tasks. Reflecting on his experience at King, he said, “Curiosity has been a really important thing for me in terms of just creating things, and then once it's in front of me, like digging deeper and learning by doing in areas that I'm both familiar and unfamiliar with.”
Parent Liz Bacelar P’31, Global Head of AI at Under Armour, offered a perspective from today’s evolving workforce. “I'm not looking for engineers anymore. I'm looking for philosophers. I'm looking for arts majors. I'm looking for thinking, thinking.” Bacelar said she encourages her colleagues to learn about AI's uses to remain relevant in the workforce and shared the same message with the audience.
Students offered firsthand accounts of how artificial intelligence is influencing their academic experiences. Lillian Cho ’27 described a memorable moment in Spanish class. “We were able to chat with the AI bot to have a conversation in Spanish, and this was really memorable for me because I was able to practice different vocabulary words in context and practice speaking and learning new words like a native.”
Ty Srihari ’27 reflected on his introduction to AI at home. “We spent like an hour, just like having fun, just like telling the AI to make photos. They weren't great, but we had a lot of fun going back and forth, tinkering around with, like, making these images.” Over time, he began to use it for academic support. “AI is not a person, so don't personify it. But, kind of that same relationship, how I would use a friend for help, or, like, how I would use a tutor, when asking for help.”
Christina Stuart ’27 highlighted the limitations of the technology at this stage of development. “I was getting really frustrated with it, because it wasn't producing what I wanted it to do. My friend came over to me, and she was like, ‘You know, AI is not going to produce what you want exactly.’ And so I just had to stick with what my best result was.”
Attendees received handouts and guides summarizing the AI frameworks, conversation starters, and tips for supporting their children at home, giving them tools to continue the discussion beyond the event.
Throughout the evening, speakers returned to a common theme. Artificial intelligence will continue to evolve, but students who pair technological fluency with curiosity, integrity, and critical thinking will be best prepared for what comes next. By inviting families into the conversation, King School reinforced its commitment to ensuring that AI enhances learning while keeping human judgment at the center.