Vanessa Feltz coverage of Deloitte’s annual back-to-school survey puts a number on a problem many parents are already seeing at home: half of 1,150 parents of school-aged children said they are concerned their child relies on AI too much. The survey also showed a gap between student use and school policy, with nearly 30% saying their children already use generative AI in schoolwork.
Deloitte and school AI gaps
Deloitte surveyed 1,150 parents of school-aged children for its annual back-to-school survey. Among them, 22% said their child's school provides approved generative AI tools, while 33% said the school has established guidelines for using generative AI.
That leaves many families navigating AI at home and in class without the same level of structure from schools. More than a third of parents said they are concerned schools are not preparing kids enough with AI skills, and one in eight said they plan to pay for AI tutoring or camps.
Katie Notopolous and Ward
The concern sits alongside an example Katie Notopolous wrote about in May, when her third grader and his friends were using Gemini on school-provided Chromebooks to make funny pictures of poop and dinosaurs. Ward, a physics teacher in Canada, said student use of AI tools pushed him back toward handwritten assignments.
Ward said, "I've tried to sort of shift back toward some handwritten assignments, instead of having them do it on the computer." He added, "That way, I can tell this is how they're writing."
"I know it's theirs," Ward said.
Parents of school-aged children
The survey points to a practical split for parents of school-aged children: some schools are offering approved tools and written rules, but many are not, even as student use keeps rising. Families looking for more structure are already paying for it themselves through tutoring or camps, while teachers like Ward are changing assignments so student writing is easier to judge on its own terms.
The unanswered question is how quickly schools will close the gap between student use and their own AI guidance, because the survey suggests parents are already looking for answers before the classroom does.
