Sherri Moore is a professor at UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce, and while she admitted she was a bit of a dinosaur when it came to tech, she’s come around to AI, at least in some ways.
“I’ve been using it myself to help me, update my lectures, bring them forward, adding new suggestions," Moore told Radio IQ. "But my classroom is all chalk and talk so they don’t really use AI.”
Chalk and talk and multichoice tests have kept AI and cell phones out of her classrooms, and she says she’s heard good feedback, even while encouraging its use outside the classroom.
“I think the grades have improved, and I think the students are using it to understand better what I say in class," Moore said. "They’re able to go and do an in-depth search, and it's exciting to them vs. a textbook. And inexpensive as well; AI they can do rather cheaply.”
Moore’s experience with AI may help inform Virginia legislators as they head back to Richmond for the 2026 legislative session in mid-January.
Legislators weigh options
While details on legislation are still being parsed out, Roanoke Democratic Delegate Sam Rasoul, who chairs the House Education Committee, thinks any future regulations would fall into two categories.
“One is the safety and security and the social and emotional development of our children," Rasoul told Radio IQ. "The second is the cognitive development, ensuring our students are actually learning by using AI and it's not taking away from their intelligence”
Virginia’s constitution empowers local school boards to set a lot of their own policies. Governor Glenn Youngkin’s Board of Education released guidelines for AI in the classroom in early 2024, but school divisions like Richmond City Public schools are still in the process of developing their own. Fairfax County has guidelines in its long-term plan. As for colleges, VCU said in a statement they are quote “encouraging all faculty to clearly state their AI policies in the syllabus and assignment instructions, and to follow the processes outlined in VCU’s Honor System and Standards of Academic Conduct.”
VCU also said they had not yet made a quote “institutional invested in AI,” meaning they hadn’t paid for AI services for their programs, and were instead quote “focused on reinforcing principled academic conduct: honesty, ethics, integrity.”
Rasoul said the legislature can be a bit more direct with guidelines: “We try to have a lot of local autonomy, but we tell school divisions, educators, what certain perimeters are best to operate in, and we’ll continue to make sure the safety and development of our children is taken care of.”
Prince William County Democratic Delegate Michelle Maldonado is on the Joint Commission on Technology and Science. She said that group has been examining the issue leading into 2026, but it's going to involve a lot of stakeholders, especially as Virginia looks to train the next generation of employees.
“We’ll find ways to make sure the basis, to use as a jump point, is there so we can make sure our kids are staying competitive," Maldonado said. "It’s really a big coordinated, collaborative effort, cause we’re looking at workforce development, pipeline development, as well as education as well as legislation. All of those things are going to go hand in hand I think.”
It's already being thought about and used in our schools
As far as successful models, Maldonado pointed to a roadmap created by the Southern Regional Education Board, a group she worked with in 2024, as one successful set of guardrails for the new tech. That roadmap uses four pillars:
Design cognitively demanding, AI-supported tasks
Streamlining teacher planning and reducing administrative burden
Personalizing student learning
And fostering ethical and informed AI use among students
“Right now, everything is so new so there’s no clear guardrails," Maldonado said. "That is a big frontier where we need to have serious focus.”
But the lack of guardrails at the state, federal and local level isn’t slowing private industry’s entry into the market.
Nhon Ma is CEO & Co-Founder of Numerade. The AI platform, and its AI tutor Ace, were developed with help from educators.
“Students can explain if they understand a topic into ACE in verbal form… try and teach the AI what the topic is all about," Ma told Radio IQ in an interview over the summer. "That helps us understand if the student is learning, and we can provide that data back to teachers: Johnny is learning because he’s explaining it back to the AI.”
Ma, who's background is in engineering with companies like Google, not education, said his company’s work with local school divisions and 60-thousand educators has been successful. And while regulation changes may come from any number of sources, he’s been pleased with relying on local guidance to provide direct feedback.
“You want to make sure the AI is responsible," he said. "It’s helping students learn and it's not replacing educators.”
And back at UVA, Moore is spreading the AI gospel to others.
“Trying to explain to students and other faculty, they have to change their curriculum to make sure some of this information is no longer going to be relevant because of AI isn’t taking up time and in fact we pivot, we address it in the real world," she said. "It’s here to stay and it's not going anywhere.”
Virginia legislators return to Richmond January 14th, specific bills should start trickling in just after the new year.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
