The Howard County Board of Education approved an artificial intelligence use policy on Oct. 30, 2026, eight days after the state's Oct. 22 deadline set by the AI Ready Schools Act. Under the policy, all assignments are considered AI-free unless a teacher explicitly permits AI use. When AI is allowed, students must disclose and cite their use. The policy also prohibits staff from using AI for grading or entering personally identifiable information, and requires AI literacy instruction for students. It establishes nine standards covering permitted and prohibited uses, data privacy and security, human-centered use, transparency, procurement and vendor governance, and professional development [1].
Howard County provided all high school students access to Google's Gemini AI in January 2026. That access was temporarily paused at the start of the 2026-2027 school year for teacher-led AI literacy instruction. Students may now use approved AI tools when their teachers permit it [1][3].
Howard is one of four Maryland school systems that missed the Oct. 22 state deadline. The others are Anne Arundel, Baltimore County, and Baltimore City. Brian Bassett, the district's director of communications and engagement, attributed the timing to the district's internal procedures and board calendar [1].
Contrast with Frederick County
In neighboring Frederick County, the school board voted 6-1 on Oct. 7 to adopt Policy 124, which prohibits student AI use across all grades PreK through 12, with exceptions for AI literacy instruction, required course or extracurricular uses, IEP or Section 504 accommodations, and uses approved by the superintendent. Staff may use AI for operational tasks but may not use it to replace direct instruction or evaluate student work. The ban reversed an earlier plan to pilot Google Gemini for middle and high school students after teachers found they could not disable the Gemini tool on individual student Chromebooks, leaving it accessible during assessments [6][7].
State law and guidance
The Maryland AI Ready Schools Act (Senate Bill 720, Chapter 634), effective June 1, 2026, required each local school system to have an AI policy aligned with MSDE's K-12 AI guidance within 120 days of the guidance's release. The law also requires each local school system to designate an AI coordinator, employed at the central office level as noninstructional staff [4][8]. Separately, §7-2203 assigns MSDE, in consultation with the Governor's Workforce Development Board, the responsibility for ensuring that AI literacy becomes a component of workforce preparation and computer science standards for kindergarten through grade 12 by June 1, 2027. The MSDE framework establishes eight critical elements for district policies: human-centered use, equity and civil rights, data privacy and security, academic integrity and assessment, professional learning, AI literacy and curriculum integration, operational oversight, and procurement governance. The state's approach gives local districts flexibility in implementation, which has produced divergent policies like Howard's and Frederick's [5][8].
Research informing the state's approach
MSDE's guidance explicitly states that Maryland does not endorse AI-detection tools as a primary means of enforcing academic integrity, citing research showing such tools are unreliable and inequitable. The guidance attributes this finding to Liang et al. (2023), whose study found that GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers [5][9]. The framework instead recommends instructional design, transparency, and human judgment. The guidance also requires AI systems to be monitored for bias and disparate impact, and notes that AI may support accessibility but cannot replace legally required evaluations, services, or accommodations under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act [5]. The AI Ready Schools Act includes a mechanism for evidence review, requiring Morgan State University or another Maryland four-year institution to support MSDE in evaluating and certifying AI tools as consistent with state guidelines [4][8].