The Barstow School Earns Region's Only Responsible AI in Learning Endorsement

The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (MSA-CESS) has awarded The Barstow School, an independent coeducational school for preschool-grade 12 in Kansas City, Missouri, with its first Responsible AI in Learning (RAIL) endorsement. The School is one of just 31 global institutions—and the only school in Kansas or Missouri—to earn the distinction.

“We have long recognized that AI will significantly change, disrupt and improve education, so we developed a strategy to guide us in navigating the complexities of its use by our students and educators,” President of the Barstow Schools Shane Foster said. “The plan we developed, while certain to evolve with the technology, ensures that we keep safety, ethical learning and leadership and innovation at the forefront of its application.”

RAIL is a comprehensive implementation framework for AI in education, according to MSA-CESS, a trusted school accreditor since 1887. The association calls AI “the most significant technology since the public internet.”

To earn the endorsement, Barstow created a clear, intentional plan and a strong framework for its implementation. This plan includes adapting our profiles of both teachers and graduates to include ways in which we they will learn to interact with established and emerging technologies. Barstow created an organizational chart to oversee, monitor and evaluate AI use, and established policies and protocols for lesson planning and test creation for faculty, and research, inspiration and feedback for students. Finally, the framework includes a change strategy that will be the roadmap to introduce documents and communication, and to open conversations with our school community about using AI responsibly and effectively.

“As a teaching and learning tool, we are providing a model for approaching this new technology with optimism, curiosity and enthusiasm, Senior Vice President for Academics Tom Niermann said. “Just like every new technology humans have adopted over time, this process will be a learning one. There is no better place to navigate that than at The Barstow School.”

RAIL-endorsed schools also include Choate Rosemary Hall (Connecticut), Episcopal Academy (Pennsylvania) Excel Education (Minnesota), Malvern Prep, Academy of Notre Dame of Namur, Montgomery School and Mount Lebanon School District (Pennsylvania), Washington International School (Washington, D.C.), Academy of St. Paul, Union Catholic High School and Saddle River Day School (New Jersey), Dwight School, Rye Country Day School and St. Francis Prep (New York), and Miami Country Day School (Florida), and ten additional international schools.