When ChatGPT was publicly released in 2022, students in public Santa Maria high schools weren’t allowed to use it on school-issued devices. The artificial intelligence ban created a discrepancy because students with cellphones or technology at home could still access the chatbot, but others couldn’t.
Since 2023, the Santa Maria Joint Union High Schol District began slowly introducing AI to students. Earlier this year the district adopted its first set of AI guidelines to support teachers and students in appropriate, safe uses of the technologies.
“It’s not going away, but you can’t let it replace you because if you let it replace your thinking and learning, then that’s the global fear of replacing jobs,” the district’s director of instructional technology, Matt Stockton, told the Sun.
Some teachers already had their own classroom rules, but Stockton favors a uniform approach, so everyone is on the same page. The goal is to cut out “unauthorized collaboration” with AI, as he put it.
In all the district’s high school classrooms, there are posters with imagery of a stoplight. The red, yellow, and green lights are meant to help teachers designate when using AI is acceptable and when it isn’t. Stockton’s team developed the stoplight after a year and a half of researching other districts’ policies and surveying local parents, staff, and students.
“We thought it was the simplest thing,” Stockton said. “We also wanted something that could kind of cross over the language barrier or cultural barrier. Something that you’re going to understand no matter what your background is.”
Each teacher is responsible for how they incorporate AI into their curriculum, and some won’t allow students to use it at all.
In practice, a yellow light assignment might look like using Google Gemini to collect sources for a research project, but students must cite the tool using the district’s new AI citation guide. Green lights could be for creating, Stockton explained, like for videos or podcasts, whereas red lights may signal assessment time.
Part of the reason for the district’s initiative was Assembly Bill 2876, passed in October 2024, Stockton explained during his presentation to the board of trustees at the March 10 meeting. It requires the California Department of Education to include AI literacy in its next curriculum revision.
Other sections of the district’s guidance include accountability, ethics, equity, community engagement, and security.
The district’s educational partnerships with Google and Microsoft protect the data privacy of students and staff with their school-issued login when they use contracted tools. The chatbots Gemini and Copilot are protected, meaning the district maintains control of all data collected about the students’ use. Other platforms like Magic School are protected, too.
“We know through our signed contract that none of your information leaves our organization. It doesn’t go to build their models or develop a profile on the user,” Stockton told the Sun. “If they’re using our tools, they’re safe.”
There are also alerts that flag administrators when students chat with AI about subjects like drugs, alcohol, depression, and violence.
One of the district’s next steps is to form an AI work group. Within the next year Stockton expects to have a team of staff, parents, and students who’ll give input on future direction.
Santa Maria Joint Union is also a key part of the Santa Barbara County Education Office’s AI roundtable with representatives from private schools, charters, and “just about” every district in the county, Stockton said.
“It’s been a really good opportunity to engage with all of the districts and start hearing about all the different things that we’re doing,” Stockton said. “It has made me feel pretty happy with the stuff we’re doing in Santa Maria Joint.”
Find the district’s AI guidance in Spanish and English at smjuhsd.org/link-one/ai-guidance.
This article appears in March 26 – April 2, 2026.