Virginia K-12 AI Policy Tracker

1. Board policy and division guidance are not the same thing

Of the 19 divisions with a verified status:

• 11 have an adopted board policy or regulation that names AI.
• 6 have a draft before the board or a committee, or an item expected on an agenda.
• 1 board tabled a proposal (Martinsville City, November 9).
• 1 division said publicly that it had no formal AI policy (Bedford County, in a September 2025 report).

"Adopted" covers a wide range. Of the 11:

• 5 are standalone AI policies: Stafford County, Loudoun County, Richmond City, Falls Church City and Dickenson County.
• 1 is a division regulation (Prince William County, Regulation 295-5).
• 2 put AI rules inside a broader policy: Prince Edward County's acceptable computer use policy and Virginia Beach's digital literacy policy.
• 3 mention AI in a single line of a general acceptable-use policy (Alexandria City, Rockingham County and Mecklenburg County).

Board members comparing notes should check which kind of document a neighboring division actually has. A line saying users may not prompt AI tools to break the acceptable-use policy is a very different thing from a four-page policy with grade-level rules.

Guidance is also common. We found published AI guidance in 18 divisions. In 12 of them we could not verify any board-adopted AI policy: Albemarle, Campbell, Hanover, Harrisonburg, Henrico, Louisa, Lynchburg, Newport News, Norfolk, Salem, Spotsylvania and Winchester. Many divisions appear to be governing AI through staff and student guidance while board policy catches up. Two research reviews from earlier this year describe the same pattern. A George Mason University AI-LIFT review of 50 divisions found 19 with a published policy and 27 with published guidelines. A VCU MERC study of 10 divisions found that six had no AI-explicit language in their governance documents at the time.

2. The fall 2026 wave runs on VSBA language

Four verified records have board activity dated October through December 2026. Three of them involve AI policy language drafted by the Virginia School Boards Association (VSBA):

• Dickenson County adopted an AI policy unanimously at its October 28 meeting. The local paper describes it as combining a locally developed draft with the VSBA model policy.
• Martinsville City had two VSBA-drafted options on its November 9 agenda: a broad version and a detailed one. The board tabled both until December.
• Franklin County is expected to discuss the proposed VSBA policy in December, according to a November 9 news report.

The fourth is Fairfax County, which is writing its own policy. Early drafts went to the board's governance committee on October 27, and a formal vote is expected February 11, 2027.

Of the six standalone policies or regulations in the dataset, Dickenson County's is the only one with a confirmed adoption date after the July 1 effective date. Stafford County adopted its policy in December 2023 and amended it in February 2026. Loudoun adopted Policy 5430 in June 2025. Richmond adopted Policy 5-6.6 on May 12, 2026, and Falls Church City adopted Policy II/GF on June 22, 2026. Prince William's regulation has no confirmed date. It looks like many boards adopting now will start from the VSBA text, so the differences between the VSBA options (broad expectations versus detailed permitted uses) are probably worth a close look.

3. Where boards set grade bands, they draw the same lines

Three records spell out student AI rules by school level, and all three use the same three steps:

Fairfax's board also approved a ban on generative AI for elementary students in summer 2026, ahead of the full policy. Richmond's policy doesn't restrict use by grade, but it does set an elementary instruction focus on "awareness and foundations."

This creates a practical problem for elementary teachers. Several of these policies expect students to learn about AI, and Fairfax's draft makes demonstrated AI literacy the condition for broader use in high school. Yet the youngest students may get little or no hands-on use. In those grades, AI literacy has to be taught mostly through discussion, examples and unplugged activities, without students operating AI tools themselves. Teachers in these divisions will need lesson materials built for that. (Schoolhouse publishes AI literacy lessons by grade band, so we have an interest here, and readers should weigh that.)

4. Privacy shows up often. Named coordinators are rare.

• Data privacy. In 7 of the 11 adopted records, the text we checked includes an AI-related privacy provision. Examples include requiring review before staff enter student information into AI tools (Dickenson), limiting personally identifiable information to approved systems (Prince William), and protecting student and staff data (Richmond). For the other four we could not confirm one either way.
• Staff use. Seven records, counting Martinsville's proposal, contain written rules for teacher or staff use, such as using only division-approved tools, reviewing AI output before using it, and not relying on AI alone for grading or discipline. The VCU MERC study had found staff use to be the weakest area of local AI governance, so this may be starting to change, though seven records are too few to say so.
• AI coordinator. Only one record names a coordinator role: Dickenson County. Richmond's policy assigns oversight to an AI Task Force created by board resolution in 2025.

5. What is still unclear

• State guidance. Section 22.1-20.2:1(B) directs VDOE to post guidance on safe, ethical and equitable AI use. VDOE collected statewide survey data on AI use from divisions, due October 16, 2026. We could not confirm whether the guidance itself has been posted, because VDOE's website did not respond to our tools on November 13. Boards adopting now may need to revisit their policies once it appears.
• The 112 unknowns. Many of these divisions probably have something in their policy manuals that we didn't reach in this pass. We would rather leave a row unknown than guess.
• Secondary sources make mistakes. During research we found a third-party site that attached Richmond's policy number to Henrico, and search results that mixed up Virginia divisions with same-name districts in Nebraska and Maryland. Board documents are the best source.

How to use this

• Board members and division staff: check your division's row. If it's wrong or unknown and you have a public board document, send the link through the Schoolhouse contact form. Corrections go through the same check as everything else.
• Teachers: if your division sets grade bands, ask how AI literacy is supposed to be taught in the grades where students can't use the tools.
• Researchers and reporters: the data is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with credit to "Data: Schoolhouse (schoolhouse.space)." The methodology note explains every field and limitation.

Updates are planned behind the same validation check, starting with rows marked needs_recheck.