AI Readiness in Schools: How to Prepare Your Teams, Culture, and Systems

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AI is…well, just that. It is. And the implications we see in education will expand powerfully in other organizations as well.

 In K-12, from lesson planning to writing support, 66% of teachers nationally have already used AI. At the same time, over 50% of teachers say they’re unsure if AI will do more harm than good for students, and nearly 70% haven’t received any training on it from their school (Pew Research ).

So what do we do with that tension?

We embrace it.

AI Use is Widespread- But Trust is Not

There’s an irony many educators know well: Teachers are using AI to lighten their workloads- but many of them don’t want their students using it.

This contradiction is not hypocrisy. It’s a window into something deeper: A mismatch between comfort and confidence. Between familiarity and fluency.

And this isn’t unique to education. We’re seeing it in organizations across every sector, including in tech itself.

Recently I spoke to a few professionals who build technology every day- and some shared they had never touched a generative AI tool. Not once.

Not because they’re lazy or resistant. Quite the contrary. They were actually having to work harder without it. It was more so due to a kind of ideological purity- a belief that true creation shouldn’t be automated. An education foundation that the fundamentals need to come from humans. A conviction that AI is too flawed, too biased, too corporate.

And that kind of skepticism? It’s good. It’s needed. It keeps us honest.

Truth be told, my own take on AI (though I use it substantively and it’s even built into our product) is similar to many of those ideological purists. But here’s the risk: when our discomfort with a tool leads us to disengage entirely, we may miss how fast the world around us is changing. Not loudly, but quietly. Not with announcements, but through our own creeping irrelevance. That’s how worlds shrink. And getting back to teachers or organization leaders, we can’t let our fears lead us to lead others to be less relevant. So what do we do?

Resources to Lean Into

What Can AI Readiness Actually Look Like?

It’s not just about having access to AI tools. It’s about creating a culture that holds both belief and skepticism- at the same time.

It means asking:

  • “What could we gain from this?”

  • “What might we lose?”

  • “Where are we curious?”

  • “Where are we cautious?”

How Schools Can Balance AI Curiosity and Caution

AI in K–12 education brings both potential and peril. So, how do schools prepare?

Here are four practical strategies that any school leader, nonprofit, or organization can use to foster AI readiness:

1. Create Psychological Safety to Experiment

Let people play. Let them try. Let them get it wrong. Host internal “AI Sandbox Hours”- or short faculty PD where the only goal is to explore. 

Here’s a structure:

2. Make Space for Healthy Doubt

AI should never be above critique. Invite conversations about surveillance, ethics, bias, and intellectual agency. Every staff meeting shouldn’t be “AI is awesome.” Sometimes it should be: “What scares you about this?”

3. Invest in Real Training

AI isn’t intuitive for everyone. Build structured learning that meets people where they are. That might mean peer-led workshops, outside facilitators, or learning circles.

4. Diversify Your Leadership Table

Bring in people with more comfort than you. More lived experience. More friction. Sometimes readiness looks like getting out of the way.

We don’t need organizations where everyone agrees about AI. We need organizations where everyone has room to think, permission to learn, and structures to grow.

We can hold the tension between purity and pragmatism. That’s what truly AI-ready organizations do.

Join us in the conversation- and the practice.

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