# How to write an ai use policy for your class on Mac: a teacher's routine

> Write an AI use policy for your class in one sitting. Set task levels, disclosure rules and checks, with Mac tools for drafting and version history.

URL: https://www.lazur.app/for/teachers/problems/write-ai-use-policy-for-class
Updated: 2026-11-09

To write an AI use policy for your class, name the tasks where AI is allowed and the tasks where it is not. Then say how students must disclose AI use, and how you will check their work without relying on a detector alone. You can draft a first version in one sitting, then ask your school to review it.

## Quick answer

- Name the tasks, the levels, the disclosure rule and the checking rule. Those four parts cover most disputes.
- 31% of US public schools had a written student AI policy as of December 2024, according to the NCES School Pulse Panel.
- Do not let an AI detector score decide a case on its own. Detectors have misflagged non-native English writing.
- Keep draft history in Google Docs or Pages as evidence of process, not as proof of who typed each word.
- Check your school's rules and your Workspace settings before you publish, then test the policy on one assignment.

## What writing a classroom ai-use policy costs you

- **Students guess the rules.** Without a written rule, students fill the gap with their own guesses. Some decide any AI help is fine. Others decide any AI help is cheating, then hide it. You end up grading work where nobody knows what was allowed. That gap is the first cost, and it shows up in every assignment.
- **False alarms from detectors.** CalMatters, citing a Center for Democracy & Technology survey, reports that one in five high schoolers said they or someone they know had been wrongly accused of using generative AI to cheat. A detector score can start that accusation. A clear policy with a checking rule keeps a number from deciding the case alone.
- **Money spent on detectors.** CalMatters tracked more than $15 million in AI detector purchases across 57 institutions. CSU spent over $1.1 million in 2025. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo paid $171,000 from 2020 to 2024, then ended its contract, citing too few faculty using it. Those are universities, so the prices do not transfer directly to your school.
- **Hours lost to rework.** Weekly AI-using teachers report saving 5.9 hours per week, according to the Walton Family Foundation and Gallup. Teachers in schools with a policy report 2.3 hours saved, against 1.7 hours without one. These are self-reported, and the link to policy is correlational. The pattern is worth noticing, but it does not prove a policy saves time.
- **Trust with families and students.** Trust is hard to rebuild after a wrongful accusation. When a student is flagged, a family may ask who decided and on what basis. A written policy gives you an answer. Without one, you explain a decision you cannot point to in writing.

## Why it happens

1. **Adoption outran guidance.** RAND survey data for 2024 to 2025, as reported by eSchool News, found 54% of students and 53% of core subject teachers used AI for school. Use spread faster than the written rules. Schools were left to catch up after students had already started.
2. **Most guidance is informal.** Gallup found 48% of teachers get only informal guidance on AI use. Hallway advice rarely answers a hard case, and it does not travel with you to the next class. A written policy gives the same answer to every student.
3. **Grading goes unaddressed.** Gallup found 58% of teachers get no guidance on grading and student feedback. Among teachers who do get guidance on AI grading, 10% say they are discouraged from using it, the highest rate for any task measured. Grading is where the stakes are highest, and it is where most schools say nothing.
4. **Nobody owns the question.** A policy needs an owner. In many schools, nobody has that job. A department head assumes the principal will write it. The principal may assume teachers will decide. Gallup found only 18% of teachers receive formal AI guidance from administrators.
5. **Detectors sold as a fix.** Detector software looks like a shortcut to a rule. It gives a score, and a score feels objective. CalMatters shows that the score can be wrong, and that some institutions dropped their contracts. A policy has to replace the tool, not just add to it.
6. **Students were never taught the rules.** RAND data, as reported by eSchool News, found over 80% of students said teachers had not explicitly taught them how to use AI for schoolwork. Students cannot follow rules nobody explained. Teaching the rule is part of writing it.
7. **Guidance often points one way.** Gallup found 69% of teachers with formal guidance on making student materials say it encourages AI use, compared with 51% with informal guidance. Guidance that only says yes leaves out the disclosure and checking rules you still need.

## How to fix it

- **Use three levels, not a yes or no.** Sort each task into three plain levels. Name them in your own words, such as no AI, AI for planning and AI allowed with a note. Students should repeat the names back to you. Short names are easier to remember than long rules.
- **Require a one-line disclosure.** Ask students to write one line at the top of any work that used AI. The line names the tool and the purpose. A line such as used a chatbot to suggest three questions gives you something specific to discuss. It costs nothing and takes seconds.
- **Read draft history as process, not proof.** Use Last edit in Google Docs, or revision history in Pages, to see how a draft grew over time. Version history shows edits over time, not who typed each word. Use it to start a conversation with the student, not to close one.
- **Move one assessment into class.** Pick one assignment each term and do the drafting in class, on paper or in a document you can watch as it is written. Pair it with a short talk about the work. This gives you direct evidence without buying anything.
- **Write a no-detector-alone rule.** State in the policy that a detector score cannot decide a case by itself. Name the evidence you will use instead, such as drafts, notes and a conversation. This blocks the most common mistake, and it costs nothing to write down.
- **Ask your admin about the Gemini setting.** Ask your Workspace admin where Gemini in Classroom is set. The admin console path is Menu > Generative AI > Gemini for Workspace > Feature access in Classroom. Your policy should match what the school has turned on, not what you wish it said.
- **Pilot one unit before the whole year.** Test the policy on one unit before you apply it everywhere. The AI Assessment Scale pilot reported gains, but it was one university and a preliminary study. Treat the gains as a reason to try, not as a result you can count on.
- **Ask two students what is unclear.** Give the draft to two students and ask what they would do with a hard case. Their answers show gaps faster than a colleague's review. Fix the unclear line, then post the final version where families can read it.

Start with the tasks, not the tools. Students will ask whether AI is allowed at all. The more useful question is which task, and at which stage of the work. A rule that allows brainstorming and bans finished sentences is easier to follow than a blanket ban. Write the rule before the first assignment that depends on it.

## What a classroom AI use policy has to cover

A workable policy answers four questions. Keep each answer to one or two sentences. Students read short rules. They skip long ones.

- Which tasks allow AI, and which do not?
- What counts as AI use? Spelling tools, translation and grammar checks are the usual edge cases.
- How must students disclose AI use, and where?
- How will you check work, and what happens if a student disagrees?

Those four answers are the core. Everything else is detail you can add later, such as a disclosure template or a list of approved tools.

## How common AI use policies are right now

Many classes still work without one. The National Center for Education Statistics, through its School Pulse Panel, found 31% of US public schools had a written policy on student AI use as of December 2024. Secondary schools led. High schools were at 43%, middle schools at 29%, and elementary schools at 27%. Teachers report less. Walton Family Foundation and Gallup found 19% of teachers work in a school with an AI policy. RAND survey data, as reported by eSchool News, put the principal figure near 45%.

- **31%** Of US public schools had a written policy on student AI use, data as of December 2024 ([source](https://www.childtrends.org/publications/public-schools-ai-policies-students))
- **18%** Of teachers get formal AI guidance from administrators, Gallup survey of 2,069 teachers ([source](https://news.gallup.com/poll/710534/teachers-receive-no-formal-guidance.aspx))
- **34%** Of teachers get no AI guidance on any of the 10 tasks the survey measured ([source](https://news.gallup.com/poll/710534/teachers-receive-no-formal-guidance.aspx))
- **5.9 hours** Saved per week by weekly AI-using teachers, self-reported ([source](https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/the-ai-dividend-new-survey-shows-ai-is-helping-teachers-reclaim-valuable-time))

![Teacher at a laptop planning how to write an AI use policy for your class](https://images.lazur.app/content-images/problem/write-ai-use-policy-for-class/write-an-ai-use-policy-for-your-1-3eb670.jpg)

These numbers disagree because the surveys ask different people and measure different things. Read them as a range. The useful number is the one for your own school. Ask for the district rule before you write your class rule, so the two fit together.

## Step by step: draft your policy in one sitting

Give yourself one planning session with your assignment list open. The steps below work in any subject. Write each rule as a sentence a student could repeat back to you.

1. Pick your tasks. List every kind of work your class produces, such as reading responses, drafts, lab reports, quizzes and presentations. Cross out anything that never involves writing.
2. Sort each task into a level. Use three plain levels, such as no AI, AI for planning only, and AI allowed with a disclosure note. Pick names your students will remember.
3. Write the disclosure rule. Say where students must note AI use, such as at the top of a draft or on the back of a worksheet. Give one sample line they can copy.
4. Write the checking rule. Say that you judge work by its drafts, by in-class writing and by a short talk with the student. Say that a detector score is not enough on its own.
5. Write the edge cases. Cover spelling and grammar tools, translation, read-aloud tools and any accommodation written into a student's plan.
6. Write the consequences and the appeal. Describe what happens after a concern, and how a student can explain their process before a decision is made.

### Worked example for a history class

Say you teach a history class where students write short essays. You decide students can use AI to find sources to read, but not to write any sentence of the essay. You also allow AI to suggest outlines, if the student notes it at the top of the draft. That gives you three levels, and each one has a visible rule. The table shows a version you could post.

| Level | What students may do | What they must show |
| --- | --- | --- |
| No AI | Write the essay and any quiz answers without AI | Work done in class, or a draft with version history |
| AI for planning | Ask AI to suggest an outline or a list of questions | A note at the top of the draft naming the tool and the request |
| AI for finding sources | Ask AI to point to sources to read, then check each one | A list of the sources read, with a line on each |

_Sample three-level policy for a history class. Adapt the levels to your subject and your school's rules._

Post the table where students already look, such as the top of each assignment sheet. Short labels help. Students forget long names for levels, so keep each name to one or two words.

## Why an AI detector should not decide a case

Detector scores look tempting because they give you a number. The number is not proof. CalMatters reports that Turnitin acknowledges its detector gets it wrong sometimes. A preprint by Liang and colleagues on arXiv found detectors consistently misclassified non-native English writing as AI-generated, and it warns against using them in educational settings.

Write down what you will use instead. Good options are draft history, in-class writing, and a short conversation about the work. Those give you evidence you can explain to a student or a family, even when the student disagrees with you.

![Students with laptops in a classroom, the setting for a write an AI use policy for your class plan](https://images.lazur.app/content-images/problem/write-ai-use-policy-for-class/write-an-ai-use-policy-for-your-3-cfc613.jpg)

## Edge cases to settle before the first assignment

Most disputes begin with a tool that the policy never mentioned. Write these cases down before the first assignment that uses them.

- Spelling and grammar checks built into Pages or Google Docs
- Translation tools for students who are still learning English
- Read-aloud and speech-to-text tools used as accommodations
- AI features inside school apps, including Gemini in Classroom if your school has it on
- Brainstorming with classmates, compared with brainstorming with a chatbot

For accommodations, follow the student's plan first. Do not write a class rule that overrides a plan. If a rule is unclear, ask your special education team before you enforce it.

## Write the policy in Google Docs or Pages and keep its history

Write the policy in Google Docs or Pages so you can see its history later. In Google Docs, click Last edit at the top right of the document. Choose a version, click Restore this version, then click Restore. You need edit permission to restore. Older blog posts describe File > Version history, but Google's current help page does not show that path. [Google Docs for teachers](https://www.lazur.app/for/teachers/google-docs) covers the rest of the routine.

![Teacher writing notes at a desk while drafting an AI use policy for your class](https://images.lazur.app/content-images/problem/write-ai-use-policy-for-class/write-an-ai-use-policy-for-your-2-04a274.jpg)

Pages keeps revision history too. Apple's Pages User Guide covers restoring an earlier version and Track changes. Check your release with Pages > About Pages, then follow the guide for that version, because steps can differ between releases. If your school uses Word for Mac, select the document name on the title bar and choose Browse Version History. That works only for files in OneDrive or SharePoint. A personal Microsoft account keeps the last 25 versions.

## Check the Gemini in Classroom setting with your admin

Your policy has to match what the tools on your students' devices allow. Google's admin help says Gemini in Classroom is on by default for all ages. A Workspace admin controls it at Menu > Generative AI > Gemini for Workspace > Feature access in Classroom. Settings can change, so check the current value instead of relying on this page. Ask before you write a rule that says no AI. A rule that bans a tool your school has switched on creates confusion, and students notice it first.

> **Check school rules first:** Student work and records can be sensitive. Follow your school or district rules on student data before you paste any student work into an AI tool, including Lazur.

## Where the AI Assessment Scale fits

The AI Assessment Scale is a framework with five levels. Its authors frame it as a way to redesign assessment, not as a list of permissions. A pilot at British University Vietnam reported a 5.9% increase in student attainment and a 33.3% increase in module passing rates. The abstract gives no sample size or study period, and the pilot covered one university. Use the scale to plan assessments. Do not quote the pilot as proof that it works in your class.

## Mistakes people make with AI use policies

- Writing a rule for every tool at once. Start with the tasks students actually do this term.
- Copying a policy from another district without changing it for your subject.
- Treating version history as proof that no AI was used. It shows edits over time, not who typed each word.
- Following an old menu path from a blog. Use the Last edit control in Google Docs instead.
- Posting the policy once and never mentioning it again. Read it aloud on the first day and point to it on each assignment.

## What to do next

This week, draft the four parts, then test the rules on one assignment. Ask two students to read it and tell you which case is unclear. Next, share it with families in a short message. The routine in [our guide to replying to parent emails](https://www.lazur.app/for/teachers/problems/reply-parent-emails-quickly-teachers) can help. For feedback on the draft itself, use [comments in Google Docs](https://www.lazur.app/how-to/add-a-comment-in-google-docs).

## With Lazur

Lazur is a voice assistant for the Mac that lives in the notch. Hold ⌥ ⌘ and ask; it sees your screen, answers out loud, points at buttons and walks you through apps. Hold fn to dictate. Free for 3 days, then $18/month: https://www.lazur.app/download

- “Where is the Last edit button in this doc?”: Lazur points at the spot, then you click it yourself to open version history. (Points at it)
- “Hold Option and Command, then ask what this clause means for grading.”: Lazur sees your screen while you hold the keys and answers out loud.
- “Ask where Last edit is in this Google Doc.”: Lazur draws a circle and label around the control so you can find it fast.
- “Ask how to restore an older version of this document.”: Lazur guides you one click at a time, and waits for each click before the next step.
- “Hold fn and dictate the consequences section while you talk.”: Dictation types clean text at the cursor in any app. Check every sentence before you post it.
- “Ask Lazur for a first draft of a three-level AI policy for a history class.”: Lazur types a draft you edit. Check it against your school's rules before you use it.
- “Ask Lazur to research how other school districts wrote their AI policies.”: Research runs in Lazur's own Chrome tabs and returns a summary and a report. Check each source yourself.

## A plan you can start this week

- **Monday: Pick the tasks.** List every kind of work your class produces this term. Mark the tasks where AI would change the thinking, not just the wording.
- **Tuesday: Sort into levels.** Use three levels with short names. Write one plain sentence for each level, and one example task that fits it.
- **Wednesday: Write the two rules.** Write the disclosure rule with a copyable line, then write the checking rule. State that a detector score is not enough on its own.
- **Thursday: Check with your school.** Ask your admin about the district policy, Gemini in Classroom and student data rules. Note any conflict, and change your draft before you share it.
- **Friday: Test on one assignment.** Use the policy on one assignment. Ask two students which case is unclear, revise the draft, then send the final version to families.

## FAQ

### What should a classroom AI use policy include?

Four parts: the tasks and their levels, what counts as AI use, how students disclose use, and how you check work. Add what happens after a concern and how a student can explain their process. Keep it to one page so students actually read it.

### Do I need school approval before I write one?

Often yes, or at least a check. Your school or district may already have a policy that your class rule must match. Ask your principal or department head before you post anything to families.

### Can I ban AI completely in my class?

You can ban it for a task. A full ban is easier to state than to enforce. Name the tasks where AI is off, explain why, and say how you will check the work. Students follow rules they understand.

### Can an AI detector prove a student cheated?

No. A preprint by Liang and colleagues found detectors consistently misclassified non-native English writing as AI-generated. CalMatters reports that Turnitin acknowledges its detector gets it wrong sometimes. Use a score as a reason to ask questions, not as proof.

### Where do I write the policy on a Mac?

Google Docs or Pages both work. In Google Docs, click Last edit at the top right to see earlier versions. In Pages, check your version with Pages > About Pages, then read Apple's Pages User Guide for version history and Track changes.

### Is it safe to ask Lazur about student work?

Lazur listens and looks at your screen only while you hold the shortcut. Audio and the screenshot go to AI providers to answer and are not stored. Content is never used to train AI models. Still follow your school's data rules, and do not paste student records unless your school allows it.

### What if a student disputes a call?

Let the student show their draft history, notes and a short conversation about the work. Write the appeal step into your policy before any dispute happens. If your school has a review process beyond you, name it in the policy too.

## Sources

1. [Most Public Schools Lack AI Policies for Students](https://www.childtrends.org/publications/public-schools-ai-policies-students), Child Trends, checked 2026-11-09
2. [The AI Dividend: New Survey Shows AI Is Helping Teachers Reclaim Valuable Time](https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/the-ai-dividend-new-survey-shows-ai-is-helping-teachers-reclaim-valuable-time), Walton Family Foundation, checked 2026-11-09
3. [Most Teachers Receive No Formal Guidance on AI Use](https://news.gallup.com/poll/710534/teachers-receive-no-formal-guidance.aspx), Gallup, checked 2026-11-09
4. [Costly and unreliable: AI and plagiarism detectors wreak havoc in higher ed](https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2025/06/ai-detector/), CalMatters, checked 2026-11-09
5. [GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers (arXiv 2304.02819)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.02819), arXiv, checked 2026-11-09
6. [The AI Assessment Scale (AIAS) in action: A pilot implementation of GenAI supported assessment (arXiv 2403.14692)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14692), arXiv, checked 2026-11-09
7. [AI Assessment Scale: Research and publications](https://aiassessmentscale.com/publications/), AI Assessment Scale, checked 2026-11-09
8. [See and restore previous versions in Google Docs](https://support.google.com/docs/answer/190843), Google, checked 2026-11-09
9. [Manage access to Gemini in Classroom](https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/getting-started/editions/manage-access-to-gemini-in-classroom), Google Workspace Admin Help, checked 2026-11-09
10. [View previous versions of Office files](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/collab-files/view-previous-versions-of-office-files), Microsoft, checked 2026-11-09
11. [Pages User Guide for Mac](https://support.apple.com/guide/pages/welcome/mac), Apple, checked 2026-11-09
12. [AI use is on the rise, but is guidance keeping pace?](https://www.eschoolnews.com/digital-learning/2026/01/02/ai-use-is-on-the-rise-but-is-guidance-keeping-pace/), eSchool News, checked 2026-11-09