The person who signs the district's AI contract is usually the person with the least evidence in front of them. Teachers have tried the tools. Principals have watched the demos. The superintendent gets a one-page summary, a procurement deadline and a board meeting on Tuesday. I have sat in enough of those meetings, in the US, the UK and the Gulf, to know how the decision gets made: on trust, under time pressure, with the compliance questions asked last.
This post is for superintendents, chief academic officers and the district cabinet, and for the principal or director of special education asked to bring a recommendation upstairs. It is not a list of classroom tools; the directory's full tool list covers those. This is about the seven jobs that land on a district desk: policy, platform, oversight, communication, funding, institutional knowledge and data.
How This List Was Built
The pool was the 21 tools in the directory's school administration and safety category, plus the two district platforms teachers most often ask me about. I judged each on five things: whether it does a job a district office actually has, evidence that real schools use it, what the vendor declares about FERPA, COPPA and data hosting, whether the pricing is honest, and whether it keeps the judgement with the human signing the paper.
Nobody pays to be on this list and vendors cannot buy placement. One disclosure matters more than usual: the K12 AI Policy Generator was built by my own team. It is here because it is free and does the policy job well, and you should weigh my opinion of it accordingly.
Three tools were left out on purpose. SLT AI is excellent, but it is built around DfE, Ofsted and KCSIE guidance, so it belongs on a UK headteacher's desk, not in a US district office. Acuity AutoRedact solves a UK subject access request problem with no clean US equivalent. TecAdRise is a services company rather than a product. Pricing and features verified 5 September 2026.
What the Directory Data Says About District-Level AI Tools
The tools built for the district office are the least independently checked tools in the directory. Of the 21 tools in the school administration and safety category, only one carries an independent 9ine security assessment, against 10 of the 90 tools in the directory as a whole. Seven of the 21 declare FERPA compliance and six declare COPPA. Eight are hosted in the US, five in the UK, four in the EU, two in Australia and two do not say. Twelve of the 21 do not state whether they share data with third parties.
That is the number I would put on the board slide. The category that exists to help leaders make careful decisions is the category with the thinnest evidence, which is why the "Safety" line under every tool below is longer than the feature list.
| Tool | Best for | Pricing | Grades | Min age | Privacy (declared) | Data hosted | Independent security assessment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| K12 AI Policy Generator | Drafting the district AI policy | Free | Adult | 18+ | GDPR | US | No |
| MagicSchool | District-wide teacher platform | Freemium, enterprise by quote | K-12 | Not stated | Not stated on our record | Not stated | Yes (9ine) |
| SchoolAI | Student-facing AI with oversight | Freemium, district by quote | All grades | No minimum | FERPA, COPPA (GDPR in progress) | US | No |
| StaffDraft | Board, family and staff writing | Freemium | Pre-K to 12 | 18+ | GDPR | UK | No |
| GrantGettr | Grant discovery and drafting | Freemium | All | 18+ | GDPR | US | No |
| CustomGPT.ai | Policy and handbook assistant | Paid | Adult | 18+ | GDPR, SOC 2 | US | No |
| Edu Intelligence | Plain-English questions of district data | Quote-based | Pre-K to post-secondary | 18+ | FERPA, GDPR | UK | No |
The privacy column is what each vendor declares on its directory record, not an audit. The final column is the independent one: 9ine assesses a vendor's security and data practices without the vendor's marketing in the room. "Not stated" means the vendor has not completed that field, not that the tool is non-compliant, and I checked the vendor's own pages where it mattered.
Best for a policy the board will actually pass: K12 AI Policy Generator
K12 AI Policy Generator is the best fit for drafting or reviewing a district AI policy because it works through a 13-step framework by asking questions rather than handing you a template, and it is free. You answer questions about your district, your acceptable use policy and your local regulation, and it produces a draft that reads like your district wrote it. Paste an existing policy and it reviews that against the same framework.
The evidence for why this matters is not mine. RAND's September 2025 report on AI in schools found that only 45 percent of principals said their school or district had any policy or guidance on AI, and just 34 percent of teachers reported a policy covering academic integrity. RAND's follow-up in March 2026 found 62 percent of students now use AI for homework and that inconsistency between teachers is the norm. A district without a policy is not neutral. It has 40 policies, one per classroom.
What sets it apart from asking ChatGPT to "write an AI policy" is that the questions force the decisions a board needs to have made: on data, on disclosure, on what students may use and when.
Watch out for: it is a drafting tool, not legal review. Run the output past counsel and your state's student privacy statute before adoption. And I built it, so treat this section as a maker's view.
Pricing: free, no tiers (verified 5 September 2026).
Safety: no student data collected; hosted in the US; GDPR declared; FERPA and COPPA not applicable because it holds no student records; minimum age 18. No independent 9ine assessment.
Best for a district-wide teacher platform with an independent assessment: MagicSchool
MagicSchool is the best fit for a district that wants one teacher-facing platform with central controls because it is the only tool on this list that holds an independent 9ine security assessment, and its enterprise tier includes what a district needs and a teacher never notices: SSO, SIS and LMS integration, tool-level management controls and custom data privacy agreements. It rates 4.74 from 19 reviews on the directory, the most reviewed tool in this post.
Teachers in our community use it for the everyday jobs, lesson drafts, differentiation, family emails, and that is the point for a superintendent. If staff are already on free accounts with no oversight, an enterprise agreement brings that activity inside your data agreements rather than outside them. MagicSchool's district page claims a 95 percent Common Sense privacy rating; treat that as the vendor's number and ask for the underlying evaluation.
What sets it apart from SchoolAI is breadth for staff rather than depth for students. If your first priority is teachers, this is the platform. If it is monitored student use, read the next section. For what the rivals do better, see my seven MagicSchool alternatives.
Watch out for: breadth is also the risk. Eighty-plus tools with no professional learning becomes eighty ways to outsource the thinking. Budget for the training, not just the licence.
Pricing: free tier with 80+ teacher tools; Plus at $12.99 per month or $8.33 per month billed yearly; Enterprise for schools and districts is quote-based with volume discounts (verified 5 September 2026).
Safety: independent 9ine security assessment held. Our directory record does not yet state FERPA, COPPA, hosting or minimum age for MagicSchool, and the vendor's district pages I read reference privacy standards and the Common Sense evaluation without listing the frameworks. Ask for the DPA and the FERPA and COPPA language in writing.
Best for student-facing AI a district can see: SchoolAI
SchoolAI is the best fit for a district that wants students to use AI because it is the only student-facing platform here that gives teachers and administrators a live view of every student conversation, and it declares FERPA and COPPA compliance with SOC 2 Type 2 and 1EdTech certification. Teachers build "Spaces", bounded AI experiences with guardrails they set, and watch the conversations in real time. Google Classroom and Clever integration is what makes it deployable at district scale. It rates 4.92 from 13 reviews on the directory.
Why this matters at district level is a number from RAND's March 2026 report: 61 percent of parents believe more AI use will harm students' critical thinking, and only 22 percent of district leaders share that concern. That gap is a communication problem waiting for a board meeting. A platform where an adult can see what students are doing with AI is an answer you can give a parent.
What sets it apart from Khanmigo is control: Khanmigo is a tutor with a fixed pedagogy, SchoolAI is for building your own bounded experiences and monitoring them.
Watch out for: its directory record says it shares data with third parties and collects learning data, student-created content, email and location data. Not unusual for a student platform, but exactly the paragraph to put in front of counsel. The free tier is five Space launches a year, which is a trial, not a free plan.
Pricing: free trial tier capped at five Space launches per year; Pro and Scale tiers with no public prices; district pricing by quote. ESSA Level III validated, which the vendor says qualifies it for Title I to IV-A funds (verified 5 September 2026).
Safety: FERPA and COPPA declared; SOC 2 Type 2 and 1EdTech certification claimed by the vendor; no minimum age, so under-13 use runs under the school's COPPA consent; hosted in the US; shares data with third parties per its own record; deletion on request; GDPR in progress. No independent 9ine assessment.
Best for board, family and staff communication: StaffDraft
StaffDraft is the best fit for the writing that fills a superintendent's week because it is purpose-built for educators, has a US education and language mode, and checks each draft for personal identifiers and safeguarding language before it generates anything. Rough notes go in; a board update, a family letter, a reference or a newsletter comes out. An "Org Mode" syncs tone, phrases and policy references across every leader so the middle school principal and the district office sound like one organisation.
The evidence I value most is what it refuses to do: drafts are not retained after processing, and it prompts you to strip sensitive data first. That is the behaviour a communications director should want from a tool that touches student names.
What sets it apart from writing in ChatGPT is the safeguarding check and the organisation-wide voice.
Watch out for: it is a UK company pricing in pounds and hosting in the UK, and its privacy page does not mention FERPA. Get the data processing agreement it offers and have counsel confirm it meets your state's requirements.
Pricing: free tier of 10 drafts a month; individual plan £6 per month (about $8); whole-organisation plan £5 per user per month with a 20-user minimum; pay-as-you-go from £2.99 for 20 drafts (verified 5 September 2026).
Safety: no student data collected; drafts not retained; hosted in the UK; GDPR declared; FERPA and COPPA not stated by the vendor; minimum age 18. No independent 9ine assessment.
Best for grant discovery and applications: GrantGettr
GrantGettr is the best fit for a district leaving money on the table because grant discovery is free and unlimited, it searches 13 databases including Grants.gov and more than 800 community foundations, and the AI drafts applications section by section with deadline tracking. For a district office with one person on grants, or none, the discovery layer alone is worth the sign-up.
What sets it apart from a general writing assistant is the matching: it starts from grants you qualify for, not from a blank page. What sets it apart from a grants consultant is cost, and the trade is that someone in the office still has to check every claim the draft makes.
Watch out for: the drafting tiers are priced for organisations and the application caps on the lower tiers are tight. It is new to K-12, and the databases lean toward federal and foundation funding, so check your state's education grants are covered before paying.
Pricing: discovery free and unlimited; Starter $149 per month for three applications; Growth $299 per month for ten; Pro $599 per month unlimited; 15 percent off annually (verified 5 September 2026).
Safety: no student data collected; hosted in the US; GDPR declared; FERPA and COPPA not applicable; minimum age 18. No independent 9ine assessment.
Best for a policy and handbook assistant staff will use: CustomGPT.ai
CustomGPT.ai is the best fit for the "where does it say that?" problem because it builds an assistant trained only on your own documents, cites the source for every answer, and is SOC 2 Type 2 certified. Upload the board policy manual, the staff handbook and the negotiated agreement, and staff get an answer with a citation instead of an email to HR. It integrates with Google Drive, so the source of truth stays where it lives. The vendor lists MIT and Lehigh University among its users.
What sets it apart from NotebookLM is deployment: NotebookLM is a personal research tool, this is a shared assistant with access controls and usage limits you manage.
Watch out for: it is priced for organisations and not built for students; keep it on the staff side of the line. An assistant is only as current as the documents in it, so somebody owns the upload.
Pricing: Standard $99 per month or $89 per month annually for 10 agents and 1,000 queries; Premium $499 per month or $449 annually; Enterprise by quote with SSO and role-based access. No education pricing listed (verified 5 September 2026).
Safety: SOC 2 Type 2 and GDPR declared; collects staff email and usage analytics only; does not share data with third parties per its record; hosted in the US; minimum age 18; FERPA and COPPA not applicable to a staff-only deployment. No independent 9ine assessment.
Best for asking plain-English questions of district data: Edu Intelligence
Edu Intelligence is the best fit for a district with data in six systems and answers in none because it sits as a layer over the student information system, assessment platforms and attendance and behaviour logs, and lets a leader ask a question in plain English. The AI works on aggregated and anonymised information with identifiable data stored separately, and the vendor states plainly that your data is not used to train its models.
I include it with a clear caveat. It was built for UK schools and multi-academy trusts, the closest thing England has to a district, and its integrations page is where you find out whether your SIS is supported. The directory record declares FERPA, but the vendor's security page talks GDPR and does not mention FERPA, so I have flagged that for the directory team and you should ask the vendor directly.
What sets it apart from a dashboard is the question, not the chart. What sets it apart from a general model with a spreadsheet attached is that identifiable student data never reaches the model.
Watch out for: quote-based pricing, UK hosting, and an integration list you must check before the demo goes further. This is a chief academic officer's tool, not a quarter's rollout.
Pricing: quote-based; no public pricing (verified 5 September 2026).
Safety: FERPA and GDPR declared on the directory record; collects learning data, email and date of birth; does not share with third parties; hosted in the UK; deletion on request; minimum age 18. No independent 9ine assessment.
What About ChatGPT, Khanmigo, NotebookLM, Quizlet and Diffit?
These are the names a cabinet will ask about, so one line each. ChatGPT, including ChatGPT Edu, is a general model, not a district platform: without an enterprise agreement and a signed DPA, staff use of it with student data is a FERPA question your counsel will not enjoy. Khanmigo is a well-designed student tutor with a fixed pedagogy, a fit for a district that wants tutoring rather than a platform for building its own. NotebookLM is the best personal research tool a superintendent can use on a 200-page state report, and it is not a shared district system. Quizlet is a study tool for students and belongs in a curriculum conversation, not a district procurement. Diffit is a teacher tool for levelled reading passages; it rates 4.2 from 5 reviews on the directory, and its FERPA, COPPA and hosting fields on our record are blank, so ask before buying at scale.
How Should a Superintendent Choose an AI Tool?
Choose by the job, then by the evidence, then by the price, in that order. The rule I give leadership teams is the one I give teachers: outsource the doing, not the thinking. The doing in a district office is drafting, searching, matching and summarising. The thinking is the policy decision, the funding priority, the message to families and the reading of the data. Every tool above does the first half. None may be allowed to do the second.
Three rules follow. If a tool touches student data, the safety line decides before the feature list does: ask for the DPA, the FERPA and COPPA language, the hosting location and whether data is shared with third parties, and if a vendor cannot answer in writing, that is the answer. If a tool will be used by more than 20 staff, buy the training with the licence; the pattern I have seen across districts is not tools that failed, it is tools that were bought, announced and never explained. If a tool is free, ask what the vendor gets; the directory's security assessments page shows which vendors have let an independent assessor look.
The district that does well with AI is not the one with the most tools. It is the one where the superintendent can say, in one sentence, what each tool is for and what it is not allowed to do.
What I'd Do This Month
Pick one job, not one tool. If the district has no AI policy, that is the job: the policy generator plus a counsel review gets you a board-ready draft in a fortnight. If the policy exists, take the platform decision: run MagicSchool and SchoolAI in two schools each, ask both vendors the same three questions in writing, and bring the answers, not the demos, to cabinet. Measure one thing: how many staff can say what the tool is for.
The Bottom Line
For a district AI policy, the K12 AI Policy Generator and then your lawyer. For a teacher platform with an independent security assessment, MagicSchool. For student-facing AI your staff can see, SchoolAI. For communication with a safeguarding check, StaffDraft. For funding, GrantGettr. For a policy assistant, CustomGPT.ai. For questions of your own data, Edu Intelligence, once the FERPA and integration answers are in writing.
Twenty-one tools sit in the school administration and safety category and one has been independently assessed. That is not a reason to wait. It is a reason to ask better questions than the last district did. For the wider compliance picture, my guide to which AI tools are actually safe for schools and the shorter school leaders shortlist sit alongside this one.
Dan Fitzpatrick is a Forbes contributor, a three-time bestselling author and the founder of The AI Educator, and has trained more than 150,000 educators across 30+ countries.
