Recognizing the Districts Where Students and Communities—Not Ed Tech Companies—Shape the Future of AI in Schools
ANAHEIM, CA — March 20, 2026 — A 9th grader succeeding with the right academic support in New York. A family in El Cajon testing new tools alongside their kids. A small Illinois district of 900 students building its own AI framework from scratch. These aren’t ed tech success stories engineered by vendors. They’re what happens when schools actually center student and community voices in AI adoption — and on March 20 in Anaheim, twelve such school systems will be honored for exactly that at the inaugural AI K–12 Student Agency Awards, presented at the Student and Community Voice AI Summit.
“AI is a double-edged sword — it can enhance student agency and learning, but used poorly, it can cause harm and negatively impact the development of students’ academic and social, emotional skills,” said Brian Brady, founder of Youth Engage and co-organizer of the Summit. “These award-winning districts are models for how to navigate this challenging technology in a wise, critical, and inclusive manner.”
2026 AWARD RECIPIENTS
AI K12 Student Agency Awards Website
Anaheim Union High School District — Anaheim, CA | ~26,000 students
AUHSD’s Student AI Framework, co-authored by student interns and approved in December 2025, places Youth Voice and Purpose at the center of every technology decision. Multilingual AI Town Halls in English, Spanish, Korean, and Vietnamese ensure that families also remain part of the conversation. Through collaboration with UCI’s Design and Partnership Lab, the district generated more than 151,000 student reflections, offering insight into student thinking and learning which also inform the AI suite embedded in the district’s learning management system, including the internal chatbot Skrappy, which help educators better understand each student by name, asset, need, and story. AUHSD isn’t just preparing students for an AI-driven world. It’s helping build it.
Cajon Valley Union School District — El Cajon, CA | ~17,000 students
Cajon Valley moves ‘at the speed of trust’—seeking input from unions, families, and students before any tool rollout. High school students design and deliver digital literacy and AI ethics lessons to middle school peers, while family-student testing events bring parents and children together as equal co-designers from 2nd grade through high school.
Capistrano Unified School District — San Juan Capistrano, CA | ~40,000 students
Capistrano’s AI Institute and ‘10% Club’ of early-adopting teachers has produced remarkable results: Adult Transition students who couldn’t previously read or write independently are now authoring and revising their own stories with AI. The district’s AI Taskforce—comprising students, parents, and Board members—produced the CUSD AI Guidelines as a true community document.
Design Tech High School (dTech) — Redwood City, CA | ~550–600 students
d.tech’s students aren’t just preparing for the AI economy—they’re already participating in it. d.tech‘s approach to AI from the start was to get it in the hands of students as a tool for creation. As a result, their students have launched multiple companies, both winning state pitch competitions With classmate.app and being accepted to the fall 2025 Y combinator cohort. Students also co-designed the school’s AI framework and hosted the UK Secretary of State for Science & Technology at a Stanford roundtable. The school has also established partnerships with Playlab and the Stanford AI Tinkery to support student agency.
DREAM Charter Schools — New York, NY | ~2,500 students
DREAM built its own K–12 AI Literacy Standards from the ground up, aligned to its equity mission, embedding AI instruction in ELA, World History, and Social Studies rather than as a standalone course. In January 2026, DREAM ranked above the top quartile of peer districts on the AI Innovation Index—with 9th graders scoring +5.8 points above that mark, the strongest results in the network.
El Segundo Unified School District — El Segundo, CA | ~3,500 students
Small district, bold vision. In El Segundo Unified, students do more than use AI tools. They help shape how they are used. Student voices help shape district AI adoption, lead school AI Clubs, and organize the student-run AIM Symposium for families. At PTA Real Deal Day, they flip the script by teaching their parents about responsible AI use. The district’s AI Education Community Committee, made up of board members, parents, students, and teachers, also played a direct role in shaping the district’s academic honesty policy.
Irvine Unified School District — Irvine, CA | Grades 4–12
Irvine didn’t guess what students need from AI—they asked. Over 40 classroom focus group visits grounded every decision in real student experience, informing the development and implementation of AI Literacy skills and professional development on AI integration and best practices. The AI Pioneers Community of Practice brings educators together monthly to share high-value use cases district-wide and has yielded consistent month-over-month growth in tool usage since its launch, showing the approach is working.
La Habra City School District — La Habra, CA | ~4,200 students
In La Habra, AI education isn’t reserved for older students or advanced classes; it belongs to everyone. Across all grade levels, TK through 8th grade, students learn how AI works, create with it, and question it. A developing district-wide AI Literacy Progression, an AI+ Committee shaping policy alongside educators, and a deep commitment to human-centered learning ensure that every student is AI-capable and AI-wise.
Lynwood Unified School District — Lynwood, CA | Grades 6–12
Lynwood’s AI Collaborative starts with a question most districts forget: What challenges do you, as a young person, actually want to solve? Students choose real civic problems and use AI as a thought partner to research and prototype. By May 2025, the majority of participating teachers at Firebaugh High were using AI tools weekly—and piloting the AI courses for students after school and co-building with teachers & students. In the next phase we will expand and begin preparing for the student showcase events.
Oak Grove School District 68 — Green Oaks, IL | ~900 students
Oak Grove proves transformation doesn’t require size—it requires conviction. Starting in May 2025, this small Illinois district built an AI Guidebook with teachers, launched the Oak Grove AI Use Levels framework for grades 3–8, brought all K–8 students into the global Hour of AI initiative, and held a community Family Focus Group to surface parent concerns and shape the path forward.
Val Verde Unified School District — Perris, CA | ~18,500 students
Val Verde built the most rigorous AI governance framework in its history: 36 educators generating 223 approval criteria, with 71% explicitly protecting student data privacy. Equity audits are built into the process from the start, not added later. The cultural outcome is the most telling result of all: AI conversations shifted from ‘Is this allowed?’ to ‘What learning experiences does this enable?’
Washington Leadership Academy — Washington, DC | ~400 students
DC’s first high school to offer four years of CS, WLA has since 2023 positioned its students—predominantly Black and Latinx youth, 28% differently abled—as co-designers of the AI systems that shape their learning. At WLA, the most marginalized students aren’t the last consulted. They lead. A 73% student survey response rate, annual AI hack-a-thons, and SPED and multilingual learners shaping every accessibility decision make this more than a motto.
ABOUT THE AWARDS & THE SUMMIT
The AI K–12 Student Agency Awards were created to recognize districts leading not by budget or technology, but by principle—authentic student voice, community co-design, and ethical implementation. They are presented as part of the Student and Community Voice AI Summit, a 800-person gathering of educators, students, parents, and community leaders at the Anaheim Hilton, March 19–21, 2026. Co-hosted by Anaheim Union High School District, the UCI School of Education, Inflexion, and Youth Engage, the Summit features no product demos, no vendor keynotes—only ground-truth practices and the voices that matter most.
