TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida State Board of Education has unanimously adopted new binding rules governing the use of artificial intelligence and educational technology across the state’s public education system, establishing a parent-centered framework that bans AI companions and restricts data harvesting. The rules, which apply to public school districts, charter schools, and Florida College…
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida State Board of Education has unanimously adopted new binding rules governing the use of artificial intelligence and educational technology across the state’s public education system, establishing a parent-centered framework that bans AI companions and restricts data harvesting.
The rules, which apply to public school districts, charter schools, and Florida College System institutions from early learning through higher education, aim to integrate technology without replacing traditional human instruction.
“Florida will not outsource childhood to a chatbot,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a statement. “We welcome tools that help teachers teach and students learn. We will not accept tools that hide from parents, harvest student data, grade kids in secret, or pretend to be a friend.”
Under the state’s new framework, local education providers must enact policies that notify parents whenever an AI instructional tool is approved, outlining the specific software, affected coursework, and how students will interact with the technology. Parents will also be granted the right to opt their children out of AI-based tools in favor of traditional, non-AI instructional alternatives.
The rules establish explicit prohibitions on technology design, banning AI tools intended to simulate human companionship, address social or emotional needs, or utilize anthropomorphic features to build machine relationships with students. The state also prohibited undisclosed behavior monitoring, psychological profiling, and social scoring, while banning vendors from selling student data or using student metrics to train machine-learning models.
“An educated person can use a powerful tool without becoming dependent on it. That is the line Florida is drawing,” Florida Commissioner of Education Henry Mack said. “AI belongs in a classroom when it sharpens instruction, elevates or enhances the learning experience, protects privacy, and leaves the student’s own mind stronger than it found it.”
“It does not belong in a classroom when it writes the essay, scores the child in secret, offers itself as a companion, or coopts the intellectual virtue of critical thinking,” Mack said. “We are preparing Floridians for an AI economy. We are not raising a generation that outsources judgment or rationality.”
In addition to the binding rules, Mack directed the Florida Department of Education to update state K-12 computer science standards to incorporate responsible technology usage and critical thinking guidelines. The department was also instructed to overhaul the Florida Digital Classrooms Plan, aligning state practices with federal guidance issued by the Department of Education to evaluate software based on proven academic outcomes rather than screen time.
State Board of Education Chairman Ryan Petty said the rules ensure innovation does not come at the expense of student well-being or data privacy.
“Boards exist to protect the conditions of real learning. These rules do that,” Petty said. “They tell every district and college in Florida: publish the tools, tell the parents, keep the records, prove the instructional value, and do not let a vendor turn a child into training data.”
