Advancing Ethical AI In An Online School System
Written By: Anju Shivaram, AI Project Manager, Middle States Association | Published October 27th, 2025
Source: Excel Education Systems
It has been one year since the first schools completed the Responsible AI In Learning (RAIL) AI Literacy, Safety & Ethics endorsement. We are revisiting these early adopters to see what changed and what they learned.
We began with ACS Athens, an international school that used the endorsement to lead system-wide change. Then we featured Mt. Lebanon High School, a public school that shifted grading to emphasize process before product.
This month we turn to Excel Education Systems, an online school system with programs across multiple sites and partners.
Excel joined the pilot for the endorsement in AI Literacy, Safety & Ethics early while building BRYTE, an AI tutor inside their courses. The endorsement gave them a clear path to scale safely across sites and to build trust with staff and partners. The endorsement also gave them confidence to assign owners for policy, vetting, and training.
“We built it [BRYTE] from the first line of code in a way we could feel comfortable with” – Charlie Buehler-Hoard, COO
From Tools to Trust
Through the RAIL AI Literacy, Safety &Ethics endorsement, Excel deepened its understanding of safety and security. That clarity prompted them to create a short, approved list of closed tools and tie every choice to their security and privacy work. Staff and partners understood why data stays inside their walls. The endorsement also prompted them to create simple consent and family letters so parents know where and how AI is used.
“Security and safety go hand in hand. We work inside closed systems. Our documents are not training any models. They stay within our walls.” – Charlie Buehler-Hoard, COO
Key Shifts They Saw
System guardrails and policy – leaders used the endorsement to approve a short list of closed tools. That may sound simple, but the impact was critical: their short list tied AI use to privacy and security, which in turn allowed Excel leaders to explain decisions to staff and partners. Without such a trusted list and coherent talking points, Excel’s AI pilots across multiple sites might have languished.
Staff training for all roles – The endorsement inspired them to build a six-module AI course so that Excel could feel confident that all their faculty and staff had achieved a high baseline level of AI literacy and a keen sense of AI ethics. Excel has witnessed an astonishing 100 percent completion rate, and has since added a yearly AI or tech learning track for everyone.
“RAIL pushed us to get everyone trained.” – Charlie Buehler-Hoard, COO
Trusted rollout of BRYTE – As a large online system of schools, Excel relies on several outside partners. One of those partners was deeply skeptical of Excel’s BRYTE AI tool, but Excel’s policies and guardrails that emerged from their endorsement work moved that skeptical partner from “turn it off” to “show us how.”
“We gained credibility with staff because a major accreditor stood behind this. That helped with buy-in” – Mark Ulven, President
What Comes Next
Excel is pairing AI with competency checks so students can show what they know and get to the right next step. They will expand their in-course tutor and teacher-facing supports with the same closed-system guardrails.
“AI will help students demonstrate competency and then challenge them in ways that fit their learning style” — Charlie Buehler Hoard, COO
School systems need more than tools. They need trust. The RAIL endorsement in AI Literacy, Safety & Ethics provides that trust because it is not just a credential; it’s a change implementation framework. For Excel, that meant they could use the endorsement process to create real assets to show their internal and external stakeholders what had really changed—and what they could really trust.
This month we will share short video clips from our conversation with Excel Education Systems on how a system school built trust for BRYTE, what training every staff member looks like, and how partners moved from “turn AI off” to “show us how.”
Move from tools to trust across your system. Join the next RAIL cohort.