Norwalk teachers now widely using AI tools, assistant superintendent says

NORWALK, Conn. — Norwalk Public Schools is continuing to go all-in on artificial intelligence.

The Norwalk City Council on Tuesday approved purchasing three AI platforms for the school district for about $266,000. Over $200,000 of that funding will go toward “Google AI Pro for Education.”

With the platform, teachers can analyze student performance, create “math and science resources,” and generate “highly interactive curriculum units,” according to a letter from Assistant Superintendent Ralph Valenzisi to the Finance and Claims Committee.

City Council members also approved $34,500 for another “AI-powered instructional software package” designed for high school classes and $20,542 for an AI platform intended for elementary and middle schools, according to Valenzisi’s letter requesting the funding.

Valenzisi, who oversees “digital learning and innovation” for NPS, told the council’s Finance and Claims Committee last week that the district has embraced AI in earnest for two years.

However, he’s seen widespread adoption among teachers since the district began including the technology in more of its professional learning “about a year ago.” It went from about 10% of the staff using AI to “pretty much everybody at one point,” Valenzisi said.

“Teachers, certified professionals across the district, rely on artificial intelligence tools for many things, including lesson preparation,” Mary Yordon, president of the Norwalk Federation of Teachers, told NancyOnNorwalk. “AI tools are really an important part of education these days.”

The high school-level platform, Brisk Curriculum Intelligence, helps teachers differentiate lesson plans for the skill levels in each classroom, Valenzisi said. While it provides feedback on student writing, it isn’t used for grading, he said.

“It’s all teacher-directed,” Valenzisi noted, adding later that the “time that [AI] saves allows them to spend more time with the students, and that’s the thing that we’re really seeing right now.”

Along with saying the technology is creating efficiencies for teachers, the Google Gemini AI license is also utilized by district staff members managing district operations, according to Valenzisi.

The district is currently developing a chatbot for its intranet designed to reduce its help desk’s workload and “coaching models” for teachers, he said.

The adoption of artificial intelligence in classrooms — which has boomed since OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT launched in 2022 — across the country hasn’t been without controversy. 

Students and parents have been more wary of the long-term effects of AI use compared to school administrators, according to a 2025 RAND Corporation survey. Over half of high schoolers and parents of school-age children believe AI “harms student critical-thinking skills,” the research report found, compared to 22% of district leaders.

Teachers using certain AI-powered teaching software have also been found to repeatedly help the same students instead of spreading their time more evenly across the entire class, researchers at North Carolina State University wrote.

And dealing with privacy concerns, New York City’s school district prohibits staff from uploading personal student information, Mashable reported.

In Norwalk, Valenzisi emphasized to the Finance and Claims Committee that all of the AI services the district engages with are vetted. NPS ensures that data generated by the technology does not leave the district’s possession, meaning it won’t be used for training models, he said.

While he didn’t provide a specific date to the committee, Valenzisi said that the district will host “different community opportunities” to discuss AI. The assistant superintendent called the deployment of artificial intelligence in schools a “hot topic.”

The district is “trying to address it and be as transparent as possible as a school system,” he said.