At Rutland City Public Schools (RCPS) in Vermont, just like many districts across the country, staff recruitment, development, and retention are a priority. As a technology director at RCPS and a former middle school teacher, I believe that when thoughtfully applied, generative AI (GenAI) can be a powerful multiplier for educator support and a key resource for teacher and leader success. Here are three ways RCPS uses GenAI (Google Gemini, specifically) for efficiency and as a partner for a more supportive, sustainable, and satisfying professional life for our educators.
1. Identify best practices for new educator mentorship.
We wanted to improve our mentorship program for new teachers, but time was of the essence. Sifting through the hundreds of pages of digital reference materials we’d gathered from other school districts would have been overwhelming for our team. However, through a series of prompts, I asked GenAI to quickly ingest all that mentor program information and summarize best practices for me to review, refine, and correct where needed. I also asked it to review our schools’ mentorship program in comparison to the other programs and look for ways to improve it. This allowed our team to spend the limited meeting time we had on valuable discussion rather than information gathering, which has informed our work as we continue to revamp the structure and program content of our mentorship program.
2. Create personalized surveys to proactively identify teacher burnout.
Burnout is a huge factor in why teachers leave the profession, and yet it can be hard for leaders to understand who is struggling and how to help. We created surveys for the beginning and end of the school year to understand what’s working for teachers, what needs improvement, and where teachers might feel overwhelmed. GenAI created ideas for relevant, targeted survey questions for teachers at all different stages of their careers so we could pinpoint which information about their experiences at work would be most valuable to hear feedback on.
3. Lighten the burden of routine, time-consuming tasks.
AI can provide a supportive, nonjudgmental space for early-career educators to identify strategies for responding to student behaviors and improving classroom climate, as well as relieving the burden of routine or time-consuming tasks such as writing messages to families, developing initial lesson plan ideas, and translating documents into other languages. However, teachers need to feel confident in using these tools. At RCPS, I am currently working with our middle school teachers to explore AI tools and provide them with training and support.
By freeing up time and offering ideas in these ways, GenAI can help teachers engage more deeply with students. The teachers I speak with are excited about the promise this technology holds to address hidden pressures that push educators toward burnout.
