AI, Kids, and the Classroom: The Safety Conversation Parents and Educators Need to Know About

David and Goliath Podcast — AI, Kids, and the Classroom: The Safety Conversation Parents and Educators Need to Know About**

Stan Gipe: Hi, my name is Stan Gipe. I’m here with my law partner Matt Dolman and we’re kicking off another edition of the David versus Goliath podcast. And today we are honored to have Christine Fenstra with us from an organization called CALI. Christine, thanks for joining us and before we dig in too deep, can you just briefly tell us on the surface what is CALI and how did you become involved with them?

Christine Fenstra: Yes. Well, thank you for having me. I am privileged to be the executive director of CALI. CALI stands for — it’s an acronym for California Association for Leading Innovation and Education. We are a 45-plus year professional community of educators that started in the early 80s, designed around supporting the larger education audience. So that’s anyone from a classroom teacher to an administrator, with this larger conversation around technology in the education system and in the classroom. That’s evolved over years — started with computers and currently encompasses anything from the computer that a student is using to the various platforms that they have access to to support teaching and learning. I have been with this organization for about three years. We just recently went through a rebranding. We started as Computer Using Educators, or CUE as it stood for, and only recently this past fall rebranded to CALI based on the larger changes in the world that have taken place since the organization first came to be, when the focus was just computers. Now it encompasses that larger technology landscape and how that can be effectively and appropriately embedded into education.

Matt Dolman: I’ll go back a question. I actually had a first question about AI. But before I go there, when you rebrand a beloved institution, how hard was that? Was that a big ordeal or was that something very simple?

Christine Fenstra: I’ll just put it this way — I think I entered that process with very few gray hairs and now I’m at the salon every six weeks. So it was a pain. It was not easy. It was a labor of love. But when you have a community like ours that has been around for this long and has done such incredibly important, essential work designing professional learning and support around embedding technology in schools, they are a passionate community. What I love about educators is that they are so passionate, and you can’t take that passion only when it serves you. So they were passionate about how they felt around certain changes and we just harnessed that. We used their passion to inform those changes. But yeah, it was a journey. It was a wild ride.

Matt Dolman: All right, so let’s kick it off. The first question — I think it’s probably the most obvious question right now. Everyone talks about AI. AI is not what AI was three years ago and it probably is not going to even closely resemble what it’s going to look like three, four years from now. But as it takes off, how do you balance the use of AI and the proliferation of AI in the classroom with plagiarism? How do you prevent kids from using it for plagiarism?

Christine Fenstra: Interesting. Well, I always think that that is probably asking the wrong question to begin with. Conversations around cheating and plagiarism in school are not new. AI is just the latest scapegoat for it, if I’m being honest. So I think when encyclopedias were developed, people thought, “Oh, how are kids going to learn with that when they have all this access to them?” And then when the internet came about — and I don’t know if you remember Wikipedia — they were just going to Wikipedia it. We really see AI as a tool of many that can be used for really good purposes, and then of course it can be used harmfully and inappropriately. So we really see the role of AI in education in a few ways. The first way is that students have to have a baseline understanding of what it is and what it isn’t and how they can use AI appropriately and ethically, and how they can cause harm with it. That is the foundational conversation that should be asked before we even get to how do you stop them from cheating, because cheating is a whole different conversation. Cheating in schools, students plagiarizing — that’s a very different conversation that you can’t even have until you talk about the foundational understanding that students need to have around what AI is and what it isn’t.

Matt Dolman: You’re not the first person to say I ask stupid questions. All right, Stan, you want to lead off with a better question?

Stan Gipe: No. I mean, I guess, you know, and this has been my concern as a parent of a teenage child going through this — AI, I think in my mind it has a role, but I feel like the real battle is in getting children to use their brain first and then use AI to help figure out what their brain can’t figure out on the front end. As opposed to using AI as the first thing. So like my son — figure it out. Go in here. If you can’t figure out something and you’ve thought about it, use AI to fill in that gap and kind of teach you what it is you couldn’t figure out. But I find if he uses AI on the front end, he never does any problem solving himself. It’s just — you can have a feigned level of success because it looks clean when you turn in your homework. It looks clean when no one looks very deep. And then suddenly when you don’t have AI and it’s gone, it doesn’t look so clean when you’ve got to have the concept from the ground up coming from your own head. And that’s kind of where I see the danger — how do you use it as an effective learning tool as opposed to a replacement for how you yourself will think?

Christine Fenstra: Yeah, I think that’s definitely — as a parent myself, I have an 18-year-old that’s two weeks away from graduating from high school. So I completely understand that concern as a parent as well. And it’s an interesting one to battle as a person that works in this space with my own child. I didn’t even intend to bring this up, but it just happened. I came home from school the other day — and we’re a very pro-AI household, if I’m honest, but in the ways you just described. It’s a tool that I want him to have a great understanding of how to use and when it’s appropriate, when it’s not, and to be honest and ethical about his use of it. And I came home the other day and he was trying to design a crossword puzzle on graph paper around Macbeth — the play Macbeth. And he had clearly gotten frustrated and had brought up ChatGPT or something to help him with it and it wasn’t working and he was arguing with it. And I had such a wonderful reaction to this because it was two things. At first I was like, “Okay, what are you doing? And why is this graduating 18-year-old admitted college student making a crossword puzzle about Macbeth?” And then he got so frustrated that it wouldn’t work, he slammed his laptop shut and walked away. He said, “This isn’t taking anyone’s jobs. It’s stupid.” So it was such a great experience for him to see what it does and what it doesn’t do, and like — you were trying to use it to probably quote-unquote cheat, to circumvent the system. But I thought it was a great example of — yeah, that’s not always going to work for you. And the larger question is why are we designing teaching and learning in such a way that makes it so easy for them to go there.

Stan Gipe: So let me ask you this because this kind of dovetails into some of the stuff we do. When we talk about protection, safety, things like that — you can go out there and you can probably find a million different programs that will be advertised to help your child, but when it comes down to it, not all of these are going to necessarily be safe programs to use. Some have little dangers. We do a lot of stuff for Roblox — not a learning platform, but hey, when you’re setting your kid up to play Roblox, you’re not thinking pedophiles. What do you do to make sure that the tools a teacher is handing a kid in the classroom are safe to be handed to this kid?

Christine Fenstra: Yeah, that’s a wonderful question, and it’s one that is receiving a lot of attention right now because we have some of these more public cases around the Roblox example. And there’s also a very loud conversation happening nationally around screen time and usage in schools. I think what this really comes down to is our students and children need digital and media literacy embedded in them from a very young age. We live in a digital world. It doesn’t matter if you take screens in or out of school. Children have access. They already know what these tools are. So we have to arm them from a very young age in how to navigate a digital landscape so that when they get to the point of encountering something like that in Roblox, they’ve already had that long runway of foundational understanding of what is appropriate and what is not. I remember my child being about eight years old watching those YouTube unboxing videos. And what he didn’t realize and what I didn’t realize is that that was algorithmically driven to encourage him to stay engaged and then to come to me and go, “I want to buy those things and unbox these.” And so if at a very young age we taught kids about the dangers around that consumption and built up that knowledge and understanding, by the time they get to 12 years old and they’re advancing in their use of technology, they already understand the motivations behind the platforms and they are better equipped to make better judgment calls. And then the second piece of that is we have to fund professional learning for teachers to do that work consistently and not as a checkbox that they do, which is how it’s currently being treated. In California, we have some really great laws around digital literacy on paper, but in practice they’re all over the board and we don’t give our educators enough time or resources to ensure that it’s a priority.

Matt Dolman: Well said. So I went through your background, Christine, and just so I had some good questions for today — you’ve worked with underserved populations before. I believe you worked at Head Start California. By the way, phenomenal group. How do we ensure that as we advance technology in the classroom, we’re not widening the education gap? How do we prevent that from happening?

Christine Fenstra: Well, I’ll tell you one thing — we don’t prevent it by taking screens out of classrooms. Because at times, for those less advantaged students, the only controlled access they have to technology is in a school system. And that’s perhaps the only opportunity they have to learn about appropriate and ethical use of technology — not just AI, but the internet and social media and engaging with people and how their interactions can have a ripple effect on their friends and fellow students’ emotional health. So this is one of those conversations that always comes down to funding and prioritization. Students, families, citizens, humans should be holding our policymakers accountable that we have this infusion of technology but we do not have frameworks to support teachers in implementing it effectively and ethically and appropriately. And then we go the complete opposite direction and say screen bans, screen bans. But there’s a middle safe ground here where technology is one of many tools that an educator can choose from to help enhance teaching and learning, and that is a decision that an educator gets to make — not a policymaker. They have a breadth of opportunities to design their curriculum in ways that support students’ individual learning needs, and technology is a wonderful resource for that. And when we talk about screens and technology, we’re holding YouTube videos and Roblox in the same category as assisted reader devices and platforms that allow for personalized learning and differentiated learning. And I think that’s a real big concern that we have at CALI.

Stan Gipe: Yeah, my son’s on an individual education plan. That makes complete sense. And I don’t want to get to politics per se, but might as well since California has an exciting gubernatorial race right now. Is there any candidates that are really looking at the education issue and putting it front and center as opposed to just giving mere lip service? Because most politicians give just mere lip service to it. Especially Democratic candidates — I’m a proud Democrat. Democratic candidates often take education for granted because the three bastions of the Democratic party are the teachers union, the trial lawyers like ourselves, and union members. But then when it comes time to actually honoring educators and taking care of educators, they don’t, and educators wind up getting cut first. So is there a specific politician or group of politicians right now that have caught your eye? Is this coming up in the gubernatorial race as a big issue?

Christine Fenstra: So I’m going to give a very honest answer, not just a politically correct one. California just received the updated revised budget through our governor, and there were huge investments made in education. In particular, there are investments and opportunities for funding professional learning, which is something we are always looking at. But in California specifically, where I serve, those decisions on how to implement that funding are all done locally. So when I’m thinking about education and policymakers, I’m thinking local — I’m thinking at the school board level, I’m thinking at the county office level. Because in California, you have districts that have one prioritization over here and their students are having one educational experience, and then two blocks down the way another student has a completely different experience. These districts and county offices need the funding and support to create more structure around that opportunity — not for control, but for consistency and equity. And you know, this digital divide goes beyond what it used to be. You would think, “I want to make sure my kid goes to a good school,” and you would advocate as a parent to make sure they were going to a good school. But now what we’re finding is that students are having different experiences classroom to classroom when it comes to technology. And when you talk about a student with an IEP and you talk about a screen ban, that is terrifying to me. Because if we take technology out of the classroom and a student needs supports, now they’re outed as a student that needs supports and they’re looked at differently. And then what does that do to a student that hasn’t yet asked for those supports? They look over at the way their fellow student is being treated and they’re like, “Well, then I’m just not going to say anything.” I mean, that is a huge concern when we talk about these blanket policies that are being thrown out very quickly and without any structure or framework to support them.

Matt Dolman: Well said. And terrifying.

Christine Fenstra: Yeah, it’s very scary.

Stan Gipe: So Christine, how does an organization like CALI operate? How do you fund it? Is it state-supported?

Christine Fenstra: We’re an association. Our funding comes from within our membership. We’re a member dues-driven organization, although our dues are $50, so they’re very low. And then we do offer different programs that are paid programs, and we have partnerships with many schools and districts to send their teachers. We also have many teachers and educators that pay for themselves to come to our programs because they’re that invested. We do a large annual conference every year — around 3,500 people attend around this larger opportunity to learn from each other on how to be innovative with education. And again, it’s not just technology — that’s one piece of it. Something that we’re really proud of through our rebranding process is we launched what we call the CALI Certified Educator Program. That is a five-month cohort where we’re really focused on building educator leaders — whether you’re a teacher leader among your fellow teachers or someone with aspirations to move into an administrative role. This program is designed to build future teacher leaders. We also have an AI Leadership Academy, because AI is out there and it’s happening, and students are using it. But how can teachers answer a question around plagiarism if they themselves have no understanding of how large language models work? They have to have a foundational understanding of that. We don’t fundraise. We don’t rely on any grant or state funding either.

Matt Dolman: And I think that’s somewhat important, especially in the role you’re in — because you’re dealing with technology companies, and technology companies have unlimited money. You can understand that if you’re funded by a technology company or an AI-driven company, you can be somewhat conflicted if you give an opinion that says, “Hey, I want to limit integration of this platform into the classroom.” So I think it’s great that you truly are funded by the people you’re serving. There’s no conflict of interest and you can truly have a pure message where you’re really just trying to make sure that the technology is implemented in a safe way. Because if you don’t know how to use it, you are definitely falling behind others. It’s an effective tool. Even in my field — AI can’t do it better than me, but it can do it a hell of a lot quicker. What may take me 12 hours, AI can summarize 80% as well in 15 minutes.

Christine Fenstra: Right. And someone who doesn’t know how to use that tool, doesn’t know how to effectively incorporate it, is at a disadvantage.

Matt Dolman: And I know that’s the same way with students. AI has a real hard time distinguishing between, say, a bill that went before Congress and never passed and an actual law. So if you go out there and search for the law in Colorado on a specific issue, it may pull up a bill that never passed state Congress and present it as the law. I’m equipped with the tools to double-check the AI, but if you don’t integrate this into kids right away, they take something that is false and incorporate it into their fund of knowledge as though it is a fact. And then you’ve got real problems.

Stan Gipe: And you’re not keeping technology out of kids’ hands. The money is there, the interest is there, the kids are there. It’s continuing to grow. I loved my Commodore 64 — you couldn’t have ripped it out of my hands at the time. My son’s no different. So what you’re doing could not be more important. But is there anything about what you guys do — do you have an arm that really focuses purely on safety, like how you protect yourself from threats on the internet, as opposed to how you effectively implement the tools?

Christine Fenstra: That’s another really important question. This goes back to that digital and media literacy piece. I can only speak to California — I believe there was a law passed in 2024 that required education agencies to consider — and the key word is consider — including digital literacy in their curriculum. And it’s very vague. And of course it was passed in 2024 — is it in practice in 2026? No, because that’s not how standards are updated. So we have real gaps there. And I think people associate digital and media literacy with technology or a tool. That’s not what it is. It’s imparting on students from a very young age what behaviors are safe to engage in online and what behaviors are not. It’s teaching them the difference between something that is AI-generated and something that isn’t. And the impact of grabbing something online that you see — I mean, I’ll see people that I respect and admire sharing things that are clearly AI-generated and not real at all, with big clickbait headlines. So if adults are falling for that, that tells a real clear story that we were not given those skills. They were not embedded in our education. So of course a 12-year-old, a 14-year-old — especially with these algorithms driving them to look at the same stuff over and over again and then sharing it out and amplifying it — it all comes back to advocating as a parent, as a caregiver, as a citizen, that schools and districts should be embedding digital literacy in their curriculum from the start. It’s not something you tack on when they’re 14 and already formed, or as an optional piece in a health class. It’s foundational at an age-appropriate level from the time they enter the education system.

Stan Gipe: Well said. And I see adults falling for that all the time. You’re right. And once it’s ingrained in you, it’s too late to retrain that person.

Christine Fenstra: Yeah. And it’s scary. Someone very close to me has experienced the horrors that can occur to a child online when they fall into a trap on social media and think they’re speaking to one person and end up speaking to someone else. And then it is revealed to them that that is not who they’re speaking to. And by the way, you’re now ransomed for money and we’re going to contact everyone on your following list. I mean, that is happening every day, all day, and children are being extorted. Children are killing themselves over this. They would rather die than have their grandmother see something that they communicated with somebody else. They don’t have the digital literacy skills to understand that that’s not going to happen — that those people are not going to send that to your contacts, because when you didn’t pay them they no longer have use for you. Not only do they not have the digital literacy skills to avoid getting into that situation, but now they’re in it and they don’t know how to navigate their way out. And not all children have a safe place they can turn to and have a conversation like that. A teacher is often that safe space for a student. But they need the resources and the time to do that appropriately, and not just tack it on like another task for them.

Stan Gipe: Well, I can go on and on about this one. We’re approaching the 30-minute mark. Just a few final thoughts. How big is CALI? How many members?

Christine Fenstra: We have around 3,500 members in California, and that’s a pretty small number when you consider the 300,000 teachers. But we have a larger audience that attends our annual conference of around 3,500 in addition to that. So around 6,000 to 7,000 people that we engage with each year.

Stan Gipe: What is the one reason why educators should join CALI?

Christine Fenstra: Because CALI is a space for educators to connect with each other and learn from each other directly, and to really develop those future teaching skills to be on the cutting edge of what’s needed — what they need to know about this emerging technology that’s taking place, whether or not their school allows it. Because that changes — schools adopt programs one year and change them the next. CALI is that central space where they can connect with each other to learn how to make the most out of it and to continue to build those skills within their own teaching practice.

Matt Dolman: All right, final question. What does a classroom look like in 2030? Does it change much?

Christine Fenstra: Do you want me to be idealistic or realistic?

Matt Dolman: Realistic.

Christine Fenstra: If we’re talking about the systemic issues we’re up against, probably pretty similar to what it does now. That’s less than four years from now. If you look at the way education has been designed — and I think sometimes people feel like everything’s changed so much — it really hasn’t. The way we teach really hasn’t changed that much. A colleague of mine uses an example I love: don’t you remember when those big scientific calculators came out and you’d want to use them in calculus and they’d say, “You can’t use that, that’s cheating. You’re not going to be able to have a calculator in your pocket all the time.” This new stuff comes out and everybody freaks out and thinks it’s going to change everything — and it doesn’t change that much if we’re honest. It just adapts and evolves.

Matt Dolman: You can actually be mathematically illiterate and walk around just fine. I’ll tell you — nothing frustrated me more in law school. Westlaw had just come out and we were just getting to do digital research. And they said, “No, no, no. You have to learn how to use the books.” And every one of us was thinking, “This is ridiculous. We’re never going to need the books for the rest of our life.” And everyone out in practice wasn’t using the books anymore. But we had to use the books.

Christine Fenstra: And that’s how our students today are asking those same questions. Like, why do I have to — everyone’s like, “Oh, you’ve got to go back to writing with pen and paper because they’re cheating.” Why aren’t we asking why they’re cheating? Why aren’t we asking why they’re not engaged? Why aren’t we looking at the way we teach? We’re asking the wrong questions.

Stan Gipe: Well said. And I’ve said “well said” many times today because you’ve been preaching the gospel. Thank you, Christine, for coming on. We really appreciate you.

Christine Fenstra: Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation. Something I can obviously talk about quite a bit.

Stan Gipe: We will have you on again. Well, this wraps up another episode of the David versus Goliath podcast. Thank you, Christine, for being our guest today.