Achieving State-Wide AI Leadership

Arizona educators have built up an AI Alliance from grassroots to state-level influence over the last two years. As the only state to have official statewide guidance delivered by a non-governmental entity, we will share how our model grew from district-hosted events and scattered working groups to a widely connected network that delivers guidance, PD, in-person learning events, and newsletter content to members of 14+ educational organizations across the state.

The Arizona AI Alliance is a coalition of every major education organization in the state, led by a group of core team volunteers representing a diversity of institutions, committed to supporting and leading AI awareness across the state. This group grew up around a need, the lack of a north star or guardrails being provided by our state Ed Dept, and sought to find and share the answers to the questions our education leaders had.
The model we have built isn’t perfect, and we make updates regularly to the engagement we expect from our leaders and member organizations, but because of the experiences we have we have been able to deliver multiple PD events with hundreds of attendees, deliver newsletters to thousands of readers, and have a seat at the table of our governor’s Steering Committee to influence the direction of AI policies across the state. Most of the population in our state is based in three major metropolitan areas, while most of the districts and LEAs are spread out through rural communities, and supporting those disparate groups has been a major focus of the alliance.