Whitefish schools to use artificial intelligence program

Whitefish School District classrooms can use the artificial intelligence program Magic School Inc. this school year.  

“Magic School is an all-encompassing AI program with a ton of different tools in it that can be tailored to each class and assignment,” said Jacob Phillips, Whitefish School District director of technology. 

The Whitefish School Board on Aug. 13 approved a contract for the program.  

Phillips said that Magic School is the best option for AI because the contract is relatively affordable and includes a signed privacy agreement not to share any student or staff data. 

The Magic School program can offer instantaneous resources and guidance for answering math and writing questions without doing the work for the student. 

The program is used by over 4,000 districts worldwide. Several Whitefish teachers are already familiar with the program after using the free version last year.  

“Magic School has guardrails. It might point a student to where they went wrong in a math problem without solving it. It might offer resources to dig into a writing topic or feedback on grammar, but it won’t write the paper for you,” Phillips said.  

For teachers, they can select and tailor different tools for assignments, and can get help with grading, adjusting materials to different levels, and creating quizzes. 

Magic School also has accountability because it allows teachers to see everything the student asked and received help with. 

School board Chair Darcy Schellinger praised the move to implement AI in the classroom. 

“We must teach our students to understand and use AI properly. It is being taught and companies are integrating it. If we don’t use AI, our students will be left behind and out of the workforce. So, it’s good to have some guardrails in place with this program,” she said. 

The cost of Magic School AI works out to about $6 per student per year. This compares to alternative programs such as Microsoft Copilot or Gemini, which are hundreds of dollars per student per year. The cost of the AI program is coming out of the technology budget, but Phillips said the district had to make cuts to updating Chromebooks, so “ideally, that’s not where it will stay.”  

The English department is piloting an additional AI program called CoGrader, which assists with grading and makes the turnaround for teacher feedback about 80% quicker.  

Among other technology agreements, the district approved a new contract with Photo Video Plus, a photography and video business based in Kalispell. The district will still be working with Swan Lake Studios, but that they are “trying out” Photo Video Plus as well, Phillips said. 

During the meeting, the board renewed annual transportation agreements with Rocky Mountain Transportation Inc. for both regular routes and extracurricular activities with a 4% inflationary increase in costs.  

Also renewed with no changes was the annual sublease agreement to rent Memorial Field from the Glacier Twins for use as a football stadium and track. 

Trustee Katie Clarke said that the sublease is “very restricting” and commented that the expenses would be alleviated if the upcoming athletic bond proposal is approved by voters, enabling the district to build its own facilities.  

The school district in September is placing before voters two bond requests. One for $26.5 million would expand the high school building and the other at $6.1 million would allow for a sports complex.  

An annual agreement with Logan Health & Fitness was also renewed.  

Three out-of-district student applications were denied because adding those students would exceed the allotted cap for their respective grades, as outlined by the Whitefish School District Strategic Plan.  

“I can publicly say that at this time, fourth and second grade are full,” Superintendent Dave Means said.