The best AI tools for school board members depend on the job. To read a board packet and get answers with page references, use Gemini Notebook or Microsoft Copilot Chat. To turn a recording of an open meeting into draft minutes, use Otter.ai or audien.to. To search a policy manual, use CustomGPT.ai, and to draft or review the AI policy itself, use the K12 AI Policy Generator. Keep closed-session and student records out of all six unless your district has signed an agreement that covers them.
Boards are being asked to vote on AI policy, and many do it with a PDF and a Thursday deadline. As of July 2026, state education departments in 35 states had released AI guidance for K-12 public schools, according to Ballotpedia. Someone has to turn that guidance into local policy, and often that someone is the board. A model policy posted on the Oklahoma State Department of Education site (the file is titled as an October 2026 update) lists "meeting summaries and draft reports" among approved staff uses and bars "entering sensitive student information into non-approved or consumer-grade AI tools" (Oklahoma model policy PDF). That second line is the rule this post is built around.
Which AI tool fits which school board job?
The table compares the six tools on the jobs a board member or clerk actually has. Prices and data terms were checked on the vendors' own pages on November 4, 2026. The directory category for this work is school administration and safety.
| Tool | Board job | Price (checked November 4, 2026) | Data and training, as the vendor states it | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini Notebook | Ask questions of a packet, with citations | Free in Google Workspace for Education; higher limits are paid, price not found | Education accounts: data "not human reviewed or used to train AI models" | Boards on Google accounts |
| Microsoft Copilot Chat | Summarize or analyze uploaded files | No extra cost with an A1, A3 or A5 license and a school account | Prompts and responses not used to train foundation models | Boards on Microsoft 365 |
| Otter.ai | Draft transcript of an open meeting | Free: 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation. Pro $8.33 a user a month billed annually, 90 minutes per conversation. Business $19.99 billed annually, 4 hours | Trains its AI on de-identified audio and transcripts; opt-out not found | A clerk on a paid plan |
| audien.to | One recording to draft minutes, linked to timestamps | Free: 90 minutes a day, 30 minutes per file. Pro $10 a month billed yearly (the page also says $20 a month) | Audio deleted within 72 hours; says it never trains on content | One-off recordings |
| CustomGPT.ai | Assistant that answers from a policy manual | $99 a month, or $89 billed annually; 10 agents, 1,000 queries a month; 7-day trial | SOC 2 Type 2; says data never trains a model; data processing agreement on Enterprise only | A district policy desk |
| K12 AI Policy Generator | Draft or review the AI policy | Free, per its directory listing | Directory: collects no student data, hosted in the US | The policy committee |
One number in that table decides more than any price: the length of a single meeting. Otter's free plan stops a conversation at 30 minutes and Pro at 90, so a board meeting that runs longer needs the Business plan, which allows 4 hours per conversation (Otter pricing). audien.to's free plan allows 30 minutes per file and 90 minutes a day (audien.to), so a two-hour meeting does not fit. Check the cap before you pick the tool.
How should a board member choose?
Four questions lead to the right tool, and the first one can end the search.
- Is the material public? A posted packet is public. Closed-session items (personnel, student discipline, legal advice) are not, and Oklahoma's model policy bars sensitive student information in non-approved or consumer-grade tools. If the item was discussed behind closed doors, none of these tools is the answer unless your district has approved one for it.
- Whose account is it? Google says how Gemini Notebook handles your data "depends on your license" (Google support), and Microsoft says Copilot Chat users "must have a work or school account in Microsoft Entra ID" (Microsoft Learn). Our view: a personal Gmail address or a phone app is where the stronger terms stop applying, so ask your district's technology office to issue board members accounts.
- Will the output become a record? The University of Colorado's technology staff wrote in June 2026 that AI meeting tool output "may be considered a public record" under the Colorado Open Records Act, that "AI-generated content is not automatically exempt from disclosure requirements," and that transcripts and summaries should be kept only as long as retention rules require (University of Colorado). That guidance covers the university's own business under Colorado law, not school boards. Ask your district's counsel what your state's law says, and until then treat every AI summary a board member makes as something someone may request.
- Who checks it before it counts? A person compares the draft against the source: the page for a packet summary, the recording and the motion text for minutes.
Gemini Notebook: best for reading a board packet with page references
Gemini Notebook is the best fit for reading a posted packet because it answers questions from the files you upload and points back to them, and the Education version costs nothing. Google renamed it from NotebookLM, and Google's current pages use the new name. The directory rates it 4.84 from 90 reviews (directory listing).
Upload the packet, ask which items need a vote and which page each sits on, then open those pages. At the standard tier a notebook holds up to 50 sources, per the usage table on Google's support page.
Watch out for: a citation shows where a claim came from, not that the summary is right. A budget table is the easiest place for a summary to go wrong, so read the table yourself.
Pricing: Google says Gemini Notebook is "included in all Google Workspace for Education editions free of charge" (Google Education page, last updated October 26, 2026). Higher limits are paid tiers; no dollar price appeared on the pages read.
Safety: for Education accounts Google states the data is "not human reviewed or used to train AI models." It is available to users of all ages, with stricter content policies under 18. Its FERPA status was not stated on the pages read, so ask your district.
Microsoft Copilot Chat: best for boards whose district runs on Microsoft 365
Microsoft Copilot Chat is the best fit for a board on Microsoft 365 because file summaries are part of the chat, Microsoft lists no extra charge for eligible accounts, and Microsoft states that prompts are not used to train its foundation models. The directory rates Microsoft Copilot 4.67 from 12 reviews. Microsoft says it can "summarize or analyze files" (Microsoft education page).
Watch out for: the same page says it is "available to faculty, staff, and higher education students aged 13 and older." An elected board member is none of those in that sentence, so ask the technology office whether board accounts carry the license.
Pricing: "available at no cost for users with a Microsoft 365 A1, A3, or A5 license when signed in with their school or work account." The separate Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on is listed at $18 per user per month, with a footnote dated October 2025, so confirm the current price before budgeting.
Safety: Microsoft says "Prompts, responses, and data accessed through Microsoft Graph aren't used to train foundation LLMs" (Microsoft Learn, updated November 3, 2026). That page says "Microsoft Copilot" and does not name the Chat tier, so ask Microsoft or your IT office to confirm it covers Chat.
Otter.ai: best for a clerk's first transcript of an open meeting
Otter.ai is the best fit for a clerk who needs a rough transcript of an open session to write minutes from, provided the district accepts its data terms. The directory rates it 4.20 from 5 reviews (directory listing).
Watch out for: two things. Otter's privacy policy (effective June 16, 2026) lists "training our proprietary AI technology on de-identified audio recordings and on transcriptions (which may contain Personal Information)," and no opt-out appeared on the pages read (privacy policy). Its terms also make the user "solely responsible for providing any notices to, and obtaining consent from, individuals" (terms), so announce the recording at the start. For the consent side, see our note-taker guide for school meetings.
Pricing: the plan limits are in the table; Enterprise is quote-based. The pricing page also shows a second set of figures marked with an asterisk that it does not explain, so they are left out here (Otter pricing).
Safety: minimum age 13 in the terms (effective September 19, 2025). SOC 2 status: unverified, because Otter's security pages returned no readable text. FERPA status was not stated on the pages read.
audien.to: best for turning one recording into draft minutes
audien.to is the best fit for a single recording that needs draft minutes with timestamps, because "Meeting minutes" is one of its listed outputs and its homepage describes output "cited back to transcript." The directory describes links to the original timestamps so a reader can check a passage (directory listing). It has no ratings yet.
Watch out for: its homepage disagrees with itself. One card shows Pro at $10 a month billed yearly and the prose says $20 a month; file length is "up to 5-hours" on one line and "10-hour" on another. Treat the Pro price and file limit as unverified until the vendor clarifies. Its privacy policy lists subprocessors, including BytePlus for speech-to-text, which your counsel may want to read (privacy policy).
Pricing: free at 90 minutes a day; Pro $120 a year (checked November 4, 2026).
Safety: audio is "deleted automatically within 72 hours"; transcripts stay until you delete them. The policy states "We do not use your audio, transcripts, or outputs to train any AI model." It is not directed to children under 13. No SOC 2 claim appeared, and the hosting region is not stated.
CustomGPT.ai: best for a policy manual that answers questions
CustomGPT.ai is the best fit for a district policy desk that wants staff and board members to ask the policy manual a question and get the paragraph back, because the plan is built for shared assistants rather than one person's chat. It has no directory ratings yet (directory listing). Our superintendents guide covers the policy-manual job in more depth; this run re-checked the price and the data terms.
Watch out for: its security page says "Non-enterprise customers are unable to enter into a DPA with CustomGPT.ai," where DPA means data processing agreement, the contract that sets how a vendor may handle your data. A district on the Standard plan cannot sign one, so load only documents that are already public, such as the posted policy manual. FERPA language was not found.
Pricing: Standard $99 a month, or $89 billed annually, for 10 agents and 1,000 queries a month; Premium $499, or $449 annually; Enterprise custom; every plan starts with a 7-day free trial and there is no free tier (pricing page).
Safety: the vendor says it is "SOC 2 Type 2 certified," with an audit period of May 24, 2025 to May 23, 2026, and that "Your data never trains a model." Data sits in AWS US East (security page). Its directory record lists a minimum age of 18.
K12 AI Policy Generator: best for drafting or reviewing the AI policy itself
The K12 AI Policy Generator is the best fit for a policy committee that has to produce or revise the district's AI policy, because it works by asking questions and can review an existing policy. It was built by the team behind this site, so weigh this section accordingly. Its directory listing describes a 13-step policy framework, a question-and-answer process, and links to local regulation (directory listing). The tool's own page loads as a script-driven app that returned no readable text in this run, so those features are as the listing states them, not re-tested.
Watch out for: it drafts; it does not give legal review. Have counsel read the result, and compare it with your state's model policy. Our guide to writing a school AI policy covers what the policy should say.
Pricing: free, per the directory listing (not re-checked on the tool's own page).
Safety: the directory records no student data collected, US hosting and a minimum age of 18; FERPA and COPPA are marked not applicable because it holds no student records. The directory's security assessments page shows which tools have an independent review.
What about Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude and board portals?
Perplexity is the best fit for finding what other districts and state agencies have said, because answers carry source links. The directory rates it 4.27 from 15 reviews. Its free plan is $0 and Pro is $17 a month billed annually (pricing, checked November 4, 2026). Its privacy notice, updated October 23, 2026, lists using data to "improve or create services and products, including our AI models," and a training opt-out was not found, so use it for public research and never paste a packet into it. ChatGPT and Claude do the same reading job as the two packet readers above; their education and team terms were not checked in this run, so no claim is made here: unverified. If your packet lives in a board portal such as BoardDocs or Diligent, ask the vendor what AI features it offers and on what terms; also not checked: unverified.
Can a board member put closed-session or student information into these tools?
No, not on the evidence above. Oklahoma's model policy treats sensitive student information in non-approved or consumer-grade tools as prohibited and tells districts to "use only district-approved tools meeting state and industry security standards." The Colorado guidance adds that output may be a public record. Our view: closed-session material stays off these tools until your counsel and technology office have approved a specific tool, in writing, for that specific kind of material.
A worked example: the packet before a first reading
This is a plan, not a case study. Suppose the board packet for Thursday holds a first reading of an AI acceptable-use policy, a budget amendment and a consent agenda. A board member with a district-issued Google account could prepare like this.
- Upload the posted packet PDF to a new notebook in Gemini Notebook. Add your state's model policy as a second source.
- Ask: "List every item that needs a vote, with the page number." Open three of those pages and confirm.
- Ask: "What does the proposed policy say about staff entering student information into AI tools? Quote the sentence and give the page." Then ask: "Where does it differ from the model policy?"
- Ask: "What changed in the technology budget line from last year? Show both numbers." Work the subtraction by hand.
- Write three questions for the superintendent in your own words. Ignore any answer that arrives without a page number.
The tool reads. The member decides, and answers to voters.
For a clerk, the same discipline looks different: announce the recording at the start of the open session, run the transcript through Otter.ai or audien.to afterward, then check every motion, mover, second and vote in the draft against the recording before it goes to the board. A draft is a starting point, and the board's approved minutes are the record.
What to do this month
Pick one job, not one tool. If your board has no AI policy, start with the policy committee and the policy generator. If it has one, ask the technology office three things: which tools are district-approved, whether board members can get district-issued accounts, and what the retention rule is for AI-generated summaries. Our district technology directors list and the privacy data on 161 directory listings will help that conversation, and AI tools a school can approve covers the data check to run first.
The bottom line
For packets, Gemini Notebook on a district Google account or Copilot Chat on a district Microsoft account. For minutes, Otter.ai on a paid plan or audien.to for a single recording, both with a person checking the draft. For a policy manual, CustomGPT.ai with public documents only. For the policy itself, the K12 AI Policy Generator and then your lawyer. The vote stays with the board.
Dan Fitzpatrick is a Forbes contributor, a bestselling author and the founder of The AI Educator, and has trained more than 150,000 educators.
