District officials say teachers will remain central to the classroom, but AI is finding a place in how students learn and engage with material.
Associate Superintendent of Educational Support Services, Mercedes Lovie, has worked in education for more than 30 years. She says the evolution of classroom technology, from chalkboards to dial-up internet to personal computers, has always required schools to adapt.
"When I first started teaching, we still had chalkboards," Lovie said.
She said the district sees embracing AI as a matter of keeping pace with the world students will enter.
"Technology continues to move forward. We have a choice to either move with it or to leave our students behind," Lovie said.
The district is rolling out AI integration grade by grade. For students ages 4 to 6, AI is not used directly, but it is introduced as a concept.
"So we talk to them about, what is an AI?" Lovie said.
Middle school students work with AI tools that allow teachers to create lessons tailored to individual students, with protections in place.
At the high school level, the focus shifts to using AI as a learning resource.
"How AI can become a second teacher, how it can be used to deepen understanding and to further the creativity of the human who's using the tool," Lovie said.
Oceanside Unified has software in place to detect AI-generated assignments. Senior Aiden Ginsberg said students like him are not using the technology to do their work for them.
"It's kind of like Google, right? Like I learned from my teacher, but then if I have something further, I, I don't need to go to my teacher after class," Ginsberg said.
Lovie said the bond between teachers and students remains at the heart of education, regardless of the tools available.
"The relationship between a teacher and students can never be taken away," Lovie said.
