The Trailblazing School on the Frontier of Artificial Intelligence

Niyesha Coleman, the school’s math instructional coach, built a gamified chatbot that walked students through practice problems, offering hints and feedback in a voice trained to sound like hers. Students had to explain their reasoning for every answer, and sometimes, Coleman noted, the bot got the answer wrong, and students had to defend their thinking against the incorrect response. It was a lesson in both mathematical reasoning and the limits of AI.

WLA students seem to be getting the message. In a fall 2025 survey, two-thirds of the school’s students reported that they had learned strategies for effectively using AI tools, such as crafting prompts, evaluating output, and selecting the right tool—key components of AI literacy. But 70 percent said they thought AI could be both helpful and harmful in their schoolwork.

That raises an obvious question: Does AI help students learn? A March 2026 Stanford review of 14 AI research studies revealed mixed results: Students performed better in math, writing, economics, and physics when they were able to use AI tools in their schoolwork. But gains often disappeared when they lost access to AI. The review also found that AI could reduce students’ “cognitive burden,” making academic tasks feel easier, but sometimes at the expense of deeper thinking and long-term retention. Tools designed with “guardrails”—such as tutoring chatbots that offer students hints rather than direct answers—show more promise in supporting long-term learning than general-purpose chatbots that hand students the answer, the review found. The lesson is not that AI inherently helps or harms learning but that its effects depend on how it is designed and deployed.

WLA leaders believe it’s too early to draw conclusions about AI’s impact on their students’ learning, that the relationship between AI use and test scores or other formal measures isn’t yet clear. But some teachers are encouraged by what they’ve seen in their classrooms. Since implementing the chatbot for practice problems in her math class, Coleman has watched students who once struggled to engage with content or tasks become more confident, more willing to take risks, and more invested in their learning—changes she believes will translate into stronger academic outcomes over time. Teachers at WLA, meanwhile, are using AI to support students in ways that weren’t previously possible.

Adam Browning, WLA’s director of academic innovation and AP Psychology teacher, used the new technology to address a typical problem. The College Board, the organization that writes Advanced Placement exams, recently overhauled the AP Psychology curriculum, leaving teachers with few practice questions to give their students. So, he created an AI tool that generated questions modeled on the few already released by the College Board. Students submitted answers to a chatbot, which gave them immediate feedback and flagged Browning if they continued to struggle. The system has more than doubled scores on practice questions.

WLA teachers are also using AI to address the day-to-day administrative challenges that plague their professional lives.

Clarkson, for example, uses AI to generate a weekly newsletter for the parents of his 86 students, something he says he would never have time to do otherwise. The newsletter keeps parents informed about upcoming assignments and office hours and offers words of encouragement, bridging the gap between home and the classroom. Informed parents often mean better supported students, both at home and in school, Clarkson says.

Educators across the nation are also experimenting with using AI for administrative tasks. In the 2024–25 school year, 3 in 10 teachers nationwide reported reducing the time they spend on such tasks by up to 11 percent, or roughly six hours a week, by using AI.

While WLA teachers have embraced AI to handle the behind-the-scenes work of teaching, the school has also begun integrating AI into its operations. Mark Deegan, the school’s chief innovation officer, has led the effort to automate workflows that staff once managed manually. AI now centralizes daily attendance data on a single dashboard, synthesized with a historical record of absences so that staff can identify and reach out to struggling students before their truancy becomes chronic.