Board bought a district wide AI detection license, nobody asked teachers first
found out this week our board signed a district wide contract for an ai detection add on to our existing turnitin license, six figures apparently, and not a single teacher i know was consulted about if we even wanted this or thought it would help. meanwhile my department has been asking for smaller class sizes and an actual writing lab for three years with no funding movement at all. feels like a classic case of admin reaching for a technology purchase because it looks like doing something, while the actual structural issues that make cheating more likely in the first place go untouched. anyone else watch a big tool purchase happen at their board with zero teacher input? did it end up being worth the money once it rolled out.
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the funding irony here is brutal. six figures for detection software while writing labs sit unfunded says a lot about what boards actually value versus what they claim to value in the mission statement.
speaking from the admin side, sometimes these purchases come from provincial or ministry level funding pots that are specifically earmarked for technology and cant be redirected to staffing or class size reductions even if the board wanted to. worth asking your board finance office if thats the case here before assuming its pure mismanagement.
@Phil Lapointe thats a fair point i hadnt considered, going to actually ask that question at the next staff meeting instead of just assuming the worst.
even if the funding pot explanation is true it doesnt change how frustrating it feels on the ground. earmarked or not, teachers still didnt get a say in what problem the money was solving.
ban doesnt work, redesign does, end of story, and neither of those things costs six figures. this is a pattern i see constantly, buy a tool instead of fixing pedagogy because the tool purchase is easier to announce at a board meeting.