Among the recommendations of a new white paper published by Des Moines-based nonprofit Pi515 is that the Iowa state legislature pass a law to fund artificial intelligence integration throughout K-12 schools.
That includes measurable goals and accountability for K-12 integration, the report said.
The white paper, which is available online, also recommends launching an AI Education Taskforce to create a statewide AI policy framework.
The state needs to “invest more” in AI education, said Nancy Mwirotsi, a co-author of the report and founder and executive director of Pi515. She said the state needs to start investing “because you’re … not just skilling young people, you also need to skill adults.”
Among the report’s findings:
- Only two school districts (Iowa City and Marion) out of more than 16 offer or plan to offer AI courses. (Data was obtained through a school website search.)
- The majority of Iowa school districts currently have no AI courses.
- Iowa does not have a statewide AI education policy framework, while 26 other states have formal K-12 AI education guidance.
The Iowa City Community School District is piloting new AI guidelines governing how the technology is used in the classroom, according to the report. The Marion Independent School District put together a yearlong task force for 2025-26 to consider how to integrate generative AI into K-12 education, the report said.
The low number of school districts offering AI education “didn’t shock me,” Mwirotsi said, “because I’ve been in the computer science space for a while to know that we are very slow at training, and we have to really be intentional about that talent pipeline.”
Iowa schools are lagging behind AI adoption because “we don’t have champions, and then people are scared,” Mwirotsi said. “Also, we’re asking teachers to do more. I don’t think we’re supporting them enough, so there has to be intentional support around supporting teachers and creating opportunities for them to learn.”
The report recommends funding for teacher training and curriculum on AI applications, ethics and industry trends. According to the report, 60% of teachers have used AI tools, but 76% feel unprepared.
Teachers primarily use AI for lesson planning and preparation, the report said.
“Teachers who use AI tools tend to gain six weeks per school year to reinvest in their classrooms,” the report said.
Mwirotsi said Pi515 has held an AI Challenge for students the past few years. This year it was held during the Day of Innovation in April. The AI Challenge tasked college and high school students to build AI solutions for challenges ranging from Iowa’s agriculture sector to addressing chronic absenteeism.
“For me, what happened was I was realizing that nobody was talking about a statewide policy initiative, like a framework,” she said. “And when we’re thinking about adopting AI, we have to be cautious. There are so many pieces in AI. AI is great, but there’s the human side and there’s also things like governance, ethics and bias. And biases just doesn’t necessarily mean race or gender. Biases also means whoever is inputting AI might actually forget a simple piece of data that actually could affect somebody else in a negative way.”