The world’s only comprehensive implementation frameworks for AI in K12 schools and systems.

RAIL Endorsement
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With RAIL—the Responsible AI in Learning endorsements pioneered by Middle States—you can safely navigate the complexities of AI in education, ensuring safety, ethical leadership, and innovation.

RAIL ENDORSED SCHOOLS
MSA's AI Team
ai resources

Endorsement I

AI Literacy, Safety, and Ethics

  • This endorsement is about building your foundation for safe, ethical, and effective AI. 

  • You will walk away with:

    • A close look at who you already are. Mission, vision, values, Portrait of a Graduate, and Profile of a Teacher, reviewed and, where needed, sharpened for a world of abundant AI.

    • Board-ready governance. Board policies, handbooks, an AI org chart, and code of conduct and disclosure policies, naming accountability and escalation.

    • Safeguards for students and staff. Ethical consent guidelines, anti-bias training protocols, and SEL impact resources built into daily practice.

    • A change plan you commit to. A marketing and communications strategy paired with one specific change plan your team carries forward.

    • RAIL adapts Stewart Brand’s Pace Layer Model to education, showing how AI implementation is sustained across culture, governance, infrastructure, programs, and practices. Each layer supports the others, building durable change from the foundation up.

    • Throughout the endorsement, your team will build 15 assets which correlate to all 5 layers, from culture and identity to practices. 

    • The RAIL LSE endorsement runs three times a year with cohorts beginning in January, June, and September. Note that our January and September cohorts run for 16 weeks while the June cohort has a flex- schedule of 10 weeks. 

    • The cost of this endorsement is $6000 billed over a two year period ($3000 in year 1 and $3000 in year 2). The cost of this endorsement includes access to our online learning platform, Evolution Academy, tools and updates, personalized check-ins, and formative and summative assessments and credentialing. 

    • Your team will walk away with mission-aligned assets, a shared language for ethical AI use across your school, and a heightened capacity to lead change with clarity, confidence, and trust. 

    • We estimate the value of a RAIL endorsement at $75,000 in the form of approximately 32 hours of professional development, improved teacher retention, and increased enrollment. Ultimately, the value of RAIL lies in the fact that it is a comprehensive change implementation framework for AI. That is how you stay safe and stay ahead.

Endorsement II

Essential Learning Experience with AI

  • This endorsement helps you create powerful learning experiences with AI through teacher-led inquiry and action research. 

  • You will walk away with:

    • A Declaration of Powerful Learning. Your school's own North Star for teaching and learning in the age of AI.

    • Two rounds of teacher-led action research. At least 25% of your faculty test real classroom ideas grounded in your Declaration, with individualized feedback from MSA's AI team.

    • A synthesis and a commitment. MSA shows your team the patterns across your school's action research, and your team commits to one specific change plan update, backed by real evidence.

    • Whole-school buy-in. 100% AI literacy across faculty and staff, backed by your board and faculty handbook, so it sticks.

    • RAIL adapts Stewart Brand's Pace Layer Model to education, showing how AI implementation is sustained across culture, governance, infrastructure, programs, and practices. Each layer supports the others, building durable change from the foundation up.

    • With ELE, your team creates or renews assets that build on your AI Literacy, Safety & Ethics foundation, moving that work from a foundation of readiness into your classrooms. Throughout the endorsement, your team will build 9 assets across all 5 layers, connecting your Declaration of Powerful Learning to real evidence from your classrooms.

    • Timeline: Most schools complete this endorsement over the course of about a year, spanning two semesters, to give your core team, your action research teachers, and MSA's review time to actually take hold.

    • Cost: $8,000, covering 2 full years of support. Includes access to Evolution Academy, tools and updates, personalized check-ins, and formative and summative assessment and credentialing for 2 full years. Payment can be split by request: $4,000 at enrollment and $4,000 due in one year.

  • Your team will walk away with a school-defined vision for powerful learning, real evidence from your own classrooms, a specific commitment to act on, and 100% AI literacy across faculty and staff.

  • "Part of why we even wanted to be part of RAIL was because we acknowledge the world we are living in. The challenges we're facing, and likely to face going forward. We wanted to be better prepared to serve the children more meaningfully."

    Naveen Mahesh, Co-Founder, Beyond 8

  • "I think while we are always in an AI world, the human interactions, the live interface that we had [with RAIL leaders] was the [experience] that was most powerful. "

    Raaji Naveen, Co-Founder, Beyond 8

  • “We are honored to have had the opportunity to participate in the RAIL Cohort and to be a part of the Founding Fifty. We have learned so much and benefited so much from this process. We are excited to improve our current documents, as you suggested, and to move forward in supporting our community in the responsible implementation of AI in education. We look forward to a continued relationship with the MSA RAIL program.”

    —Noreen Andrews, Assistant Principal Union Catholic High School, New Jersey

  • “We’re grateful for the continued support from MSA. MSA has been incredibly pro-active in navigating these challenging arenas. MSA continues to bring grassroots, high touch engagement in working with us. Having such effective collaboration has made all the difference in unpacking and designing the practical ways these technologies impact our students.”

    —Nate Chapman, Director Carlucci American International School, Portugal

Ready to start your RAIL journey?

Begin here with AI Literacy, Safety & Ethics.

Apply Now

Already completed endorsement I?

Continue your journey with Essential Learning Experience with AI.

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Connect with us: rail@msa-cess.org