A standing companion to the TERI self-assessment. Eighteen questions for boards of education, school committees, and governing trustees to ask alongside a district's TERI report — independent of the administration that ran the audit.
These questions are for the board, not for the administration. Where a TERI report describes the district's self-assessment, this guide gives boards the framework-grade questions to ask in response — annually or biennially, in standing committee or full-board session.
Three questions per layer, plus three cross-cutting governance anchors. Each question is strategic — covering a checkpoint cluster, not a single checkpoint — and forward-looking in form: what would it take to, how is the district, rather than why haven't you.
For state-law-flagged checkpoints, the question invites verification rather than accusation. For frontier checkpoints, the framing acknowledges where the field has not yet developed mature K-12 practice. Boards using these questions are doing the work of governance, not cross-examining the staff.
Covers checkpoints 1.1–1.10
What does our adopted AI policy require, and how is the day-to-day staff guidance kept current as the technology shifts?
Why this question Boards adopt policy; staff guidance lives in the handbook. They drift apart. This asks how the gap is managed.
Which platforms currently process student data, what is our process for vetting a new tool before it enters classrooms, and how do we verify alignment with current state requirements on online access?
Why this question Three checkpoints, one operational reality. Boards need to know there's a documented process — not just a list.
How does the board itself stay current on technology decisions it is being asked to make, and where — if anywhere — is AI being used in our own administrative work?
Why this question Board oversight requires board literacy. Also surfaces the often-invisible 1.10 question of whether the district uses AI in scheduling, hiring, discipline, or services.
Covers checkpoints 2.1–2.7
Across grades K–12, where in the curriculum do students learn to evaluate digital sources and AI outputs, and how does that scope and sequence carry from early childhood through high school?
Why this question Asks for an intentional progression, not a list of teachers who happen to teach it.
What is the district's approach to academic integrity and assessment when students have access to generative AI, and how is that approach being communicated to students and families?
Why this question This is where parent and community concern is most acute. Boards should know there's a coherent answer.
As students move through grades, how does the district build their capacity to make their own decisions about technology — and what computer science and career-technical pathways prepare them for AI-native workplaces?
Why this question 2.3 is frontier — the field hasn't fully figured out student agency yet. The question pairs it with the more concrete 2.7 to give the administration a place to land.
Covers checkpoints 3.1–3.8
What professional development have teachers received on technology and AI in the past year, and what coaching is available when a teacher needs help in the moment?
Why this question PD is too often a one-time slide deck. Coaching is the test of whether it stuck.
How are teachers, administrators, and librarians demonstrating responsible technology use themselves — and what are students seeing modeled at each of those levels?
Why this question Adults model what they want students to do. Three checkpoints converge on one observation.
How does the district hear from students about their experience with technology, what role does counseling play in addressing technology-related concerns, and what protocols govern incident response when something goes wrong?
Why this question All three are easily overlooked until a crisis. Asking together prevents the gap between policy on paper and the systems that catch a struggling student.
Covers checkpoints 4.1–4.5
What is our policy on personal devices in classrooms, how is it implemented day-to-day, and how does the district set norms about when screen time is the right tool and when it is not?
Why this question Three checkpoints, one walked-into-a-classroom reality. Boards rarely see the answer to this directly.
How is the district thinking about the cognitive cost of high-screen-time learning — handwriting, sustained attention, embodied practice — even as the field continues to develop best practice?
Why this question 4.4 is frontier. The framing acknowledges the field-state honestly. This is also the question parents care most about and ask least skillfully.
How is technology being used to support students with IEPs and 504 plans — and where is it falling short?
Why this question Specific. Not abstract. Forces a real answer rather than a programmatic summary.
Covers checkpoints 5.1–5.5
How are families being prepared to support student learning in an AI-era — and what channels does the district use to hear back from them about what's working and what isn't?
Why this question Two-way. The most common failure is one-way 'newsletter' engagement that doesn't actually surface concerns.
What outcomes is the district tracking to know whether our technology investments are working, and on what cycle do we revisit and adjust the approach?
Why this question 5.3 is frontier — outcomes measurement for AI-era learning is genuinely unsettled. Pairing with 5.4 puts the question on the right footing: not 'prove it works,' but 'how will you know.'
Which peer districts and external networks does the district learn from — and is the board comfortable that we are not figuring this out alone?
Why this question No district should be alone on this. The question gives administration permission to name peer relationships and gives the board a way to verify the work is happening in community.
Apply regardless of the audit profile.
For each area where we report being at Established or Expanding on the audit, what funded resourcing — staff time, PD, legal review, communications, tooling — sits behind that claim, and is it a permanent line item?
Why this question Budget is the authenticity check. Without permanent resourcing, 'Expanding' is aspiration.
When will the board next review this audit and our progress against it, and on what schedule?
Why this question Audits without a return date become shelf documents.
For the checkpoints flagged as state-law sensitive, how does the district stay current as state requirements evolve — and who is accountable for that monitoring?
Why this question TERI does not track legislation. Someone in the district has to. Boards should know who.
This guide is published independent of any single district's audit. TERI districts can cite this URL — prompt-ed.org/teri/board-questions — in their own board reports so trustees can reach these questions directly. The questions are stable; we update them once per year alongside the framework's annual review.
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