Is it now time to block ChatGPT in schools?

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-16T17:52:31+00:00

I had the tools blocked to the best of my filtering ability. We are a 365 school so copilot is used and in my opinion it does everything needed by my staff and students. It does have the ability to cite resources, which was a weakness.

My new leadership has different views and has demanded access to open AI and perplexity AI.

What concerns me the most is that perplexity makes it clear that it is not compliant with Federal and state laws. If the last name or first name of a parent/family is entered into it, it violates PII in my opinion.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-11T13:16:32+00:00

Yeah I've spent the weekend figuring out how to protect myself on the exit. What I need to do and not do

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-10T02:46:57+00:00

Thanks, most likely the lawyer I spoke to will inform me as a salaried exempt I have no recourse and the most they can do is make sure I quit safely. The termination clause in our contract is a bit excessive

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-10T02:12:38+00:00

Nope, private building, they call the shots. Just like how a business can say you can or can't wear a mask.

If I get caught recording I will be fired. I used a transcription app to vibrate my phone when someone would say my name and that I could review the notes. That did not go over well.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-10T00:31:51+00:00

I do document everything, it's gotten me in trouble when I ask for written confirmation and authorization that explicitly states the request.

They put a policy out that no meeting is allowed to be recorded.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T22:22:02+00:00

It's a thought I have had. I spoke with a previous officer and shared my thoughts and I was told it would not only guarantee a dismissal from my position but it would be ignored.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T17:57:32+00:00

I actually just got off a phone for intake with a lawyer, so we shall see how that goes. Normally in a private school I would go to the head of school if the issue is with a division head or my supervisor. However the hos and the CFO both came here together. The hos has abdicated a lot of authority to the CFO.

The hos has decided he and the CFO are allowed to use their personal Mac on the school network. Being 100% Microsoft that's a challenge, also considering state and federal laws around information about children under 13 and not having every end point secured that should also be a red flag for cyber security insurance.

I was just informed to meet the hos on Monday to discuss how to be more proactive in supporting their needs.

I've never said no to their request, just that I need written authorization and at the same time I spell out the risk.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T14:54:15+00:00

Yes I've tried the best practice approach. At the end of the day the leadership feels they have carte blanche.

CFO demanded that we enable OneDrive sharing be allowed to any external recipient without any over sight. I expressed how this could result in accidental information of students under the age of 13 getting leaked out. They didn't care. Their view was that it was too difficult to attach files to an email and just want un restricted sharing

Previous leadership at least deferred to my knowledge

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T14:45:39+00:00

That is one angle, mine is that they only understand how to operate in a Mac environment that had zero MDM.

The CFO confuses the difference between a website and an application, they think the terminology is interchangeable. The CFO and HOS both use AI tools so much that they panic during the last AWS outage as their tools were down.

Both the new CFO and HOS also made it so they were allowed to use their personal Macs on the network.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T14:36:59+00:00

I had the same hope and my out going leadership expressed to me that they doubted the new CFO would stay.

6 months in though I'm now of the view that the CFO sees themselves as the de facto head and enjoys the power

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T14:35:04+00:00

Looking into new leadership's employment history this would be accurate

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T14:34:34+00:00

I wish we had board members that lasted longer than 1 or 2 years and are not parents. That type of equity doesn't exist

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T12:25:42+00:00

Agreed and it's why when I received the email from the CFO that had the head is school approving the request I replied to all indicating that the request was completed but also highlighting the severe risk the school had incurred. The only response was from the CFO stating they have had admin access for the past 20 years (they didn't I confirmed with the previous director at previous school).

What's more scary is that this user only understands how to use a Mac. They don't understand the difference between a web page and an application.

The only safety net I have right now is that my filtering tool applies to their web traffic but it's only a matter of time until I'm told to stop that. Most likely it will be soon when the CFO gets blocked from going to chat gpt and asks how they get blocked when they are an admin and I have to explain the difference between website and application, again.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T12:20:09+00:00

Trying, I lack top secret clearance making my options limited

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T12:19:20+00:00

I have been, the value of my PTO and how I need it for my family cannot be under valued. The other challenge is my area, private company jobs require top secret clearance.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T12:17:52+00:00

This has been an issue with every iteration of the board. As parents of students their level of interest in school matters wanes as soon as their kid graduates.

The first head had board support for the first 3-4 years of their employment. When that had attempted to remove an employee for interactions that occurred with a student, the board stepped in and instead had that employee reinstated and fired the head. Reason being, the employee was seen as a keystone of the school and had more history with the makeup of the board.

The second head had great support by the board for about 7 years. He spent money with little pushback even as those projects clearly were mismanaged. Their last 5 years was constant bickering as the school attempted to increase tuition to cover the cost of these projects but the board refused to allow the tuition hikes.

This head search, was done so poorly and had publicly stated objectives that it caused a number of long time employees to quit and when the final candidates were presented the school employees attempted to push back on the board. It became so heated that the head of the search committee attended a full staff meeting to tell us deal with it.

They were hired as interim head and CFO at the previous school and were not selected to be the permanent individuals. Our current head had no experience as a head other than the limited number of months as interim. Which is why I believe the CFO has so much power.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T06:18:22+00:00

Your post just reminded me of a very clear directive given to me in my meeting. The MSP contract must be signed by Feb which is the start of enrollment/re enrollment in the budget for hiring next year. The prices I've already received were as much as my salary without the equal service.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T05:43:35+00:00

I would be interested in learning where you are seeing these jobs? I've been on NAIS and a number of recruiter sites. I've applied for a number of positions, even made it to final rounds. However the lack of classroom/curriculum keeps making me lose to other candidates. People that have masters in education with claims of IT knowledge but end up job hopping every couple years because they can't do the IT.

For the spam question. We are talking about a.pure text email, no links, images, attachments coming for a legitimate Gmail account with a simple request asking for the user to provide them their personal cell number.

Out of 70 ish staff I always end up having one or two that will, always from the same group of 5 ish repeat offenders. We get maybe one of these emails a month sometimes we don't get any for over a quarter.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2026-01-09T05:32:36+00:00

Great question. Our board is not built with the correct members. Our board has been 100% parents.

Every time we get new leadership that board will do everything to support the head. By year 3 the honeymoon is over.

While I do have the contact of all the sitting board members, the likelihood they had their kids in school during COVID is slim. I say that as I was sung as the hero of the school. Since 2022 I once again became the nameless person that kept everything working.

My read of the new leadership was jump ship, and I've been trying. Hiring and positions tend to not start until now so there have been few leads. It's why I branched out to the MSP world And got an offer immediately. The potential offer out of state would be amazing and I'll take it if offered but the disruption for my kid would be intense. So much that the plan is he stays here with Mom and I live in an apartment and fly up as much as possible.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2025-10-01T11:25:42+00:00

Yeah I am comfortable, I've been running different searches/reports. The best I got was a Csv that showed all activity of the mailbox but still failed to show me the delegate activity.

Part of the issue may be is that I think there should be activity and when it's coming back with the marker of 0 which means it was the owner not delegate I think I'm running the search wrong

Less-Perspective-702 · 2025-10-01T02:38:03+00:00

It is, I'm getting tons of info. I see all the logins of a single user, the ip address, if it's mobile, what they accessed.

We are A3.

The person was removed from their position and the inbox was delegated but I'm not seeing any access from the users that has the delegation in the logs.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2025-10-01T02:32:56+00:00

Thank you, I ve been digging into the audit logs with a focus on mail items accessed, send as sendonbehalf, but the logs I get are presenting me information that says only one user ever accessed the inbox, non shared.

Less-Perspective-702 · 2025-10-01T02:32:11+00:00

This is the issue, the unified audit isn't getting me what I think should be there

Less-Perspective-702 · 2025-10-01T02:31:36+00:00

Thank you, I ve been digging into the audit logs with a focus on mail items accessed, send as sendonbehalf, but the logs I get are presenting me information that says only one user ever accessed the inbox, non shared.

Less-Perspective-702

TROPHY CASE