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would become the district’s “stoplight” system for AI: green for approved uses, yellow for teacher- permissioned territory, red for what was off- limits. The posters went up in classrooms like quiet mental guardrails. Tools in the classroom This year, many new tools rolled out for returning students. The marquee tool is Khan Academy’s KhanMigo, an “AI powered tutor for students and assistant for teachers,” as Khan Academy’s Chief Learning Officer Kristin DiCerbo calls it. College expects them to know how. Employers expect them to know how. We can’t graduate kids who are ten years behind the tools they’ll see on Day One.” NICOLE CANTREL, MUSD DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY “When students are practicing, they often get stuck,” Dicerbo told InMaricopa . “It’s hard for a single teacher in a whole class to give individual help to every student who needs it. And we’ve built KhanMigo so that the students, when they’re stuck, can say, ‘I don’t know how to do this. Can you help me figure this out?’ And rather than just answering the question for them… it helps guide students themselves to the answer.” Maricopa students aren’t the only ones using this tool. AI technology has grown exponentially across education, surprising even those who developed it. “We initially launched and had about 40,000 users, and then last year we went up to 700,000. Nothing that I’ve seen before in educational technology has had that kind of quick adoption,” said Dicerbo. “I think it’s just because there’s a low barrier to entry. You don’t have to have special equipment; you don’t have to know how to code. You can just talk to it in plain language.” This summer, the MUSD Governing Board approved the use of KhanMigo and other AI tools in classrooms. In Maricopa, teachers have begun using KhanMigo to give instant feedback on essays, to translate lessons and help tutor math. “I’ve got a couple kids who would never raise their hand, and now they’ll type their question in,” said Dr. Robin Rice, technology integration specialist at Maricopa Wells Middle School and Maricopa Elementary School. “It’s not that they don’t want to learn, it’s that they’re scared they’ll get it wrong in front of everybody.”
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AI-generated image depicts students learning with the help of artificial intelligence tools in the classroom.
Out: Chalkboard. In: Chatbot Maricopa students taught by artificial intelligence BY DAVID IVERSEN
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HEN THE MARICOPA UNIFIED School District began rolling out artificial intelligence tools to students, it was the quiet
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culmination of three years of meetings, hallway brainstorms and committee sessions. The technology had been looming. Like a dust storm on the edge of town, it was coming whether anyone wanted it or not. The question was not if, but how. The preparation started three years ago with a technology task force, led by new Principal Christine Dickinson, then the technology director. She brought together staff, parents, students and community members to ask the sort of questions that any tech skeptic was eventually going to ask of her: Is artificial intelligence good for children? Will it change what teachers do? How do we stop it from becoming a shortcut? In those early sessions, they built what
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Students use KhanMigo in the classroom.
InMaricopa.com | November 2025
November 2025 | InMaricopa.com
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