AI in Education and School PR: What School Communicators Need To Know Right Now

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to present on a topic that is becoming more relevant by the day: how artificial intelligence is showing up in education and school public relations.

Since then, I have had several friends and colleagues reach out asking for the presentation or wanting to continue the conversation. That told me something important. This is not just a trending topic people are curious about. It is a real communication conversation that leaders, school communicators, and education professionals are actively trying to navigate.

My presentation focused on one core idea: AI can be a support tool for communicators, but it should never replace strategy, judgment, trust, or a real person. I can be quoted as saying, “AI cannot replace the school communicator, because you are the expert.”

In school communications, the demand is constant. There is always more to produce, more to explain, and more to adapt for different audiences. Families want timely information. Staff need clarity. Communities expect transparency. And all of that is happening while communications teams often have limited time and capacity. That is one reason AI is becoming part of the everyday workflow. It can help communicators move faster on first drafts, organize ideas, simplify language, and repurpose content across channels.

That said, the conversation should not be whether AI is relevant. It already is. The better question is how to use it well.

For school communicators, some of the strongest use cases are practical and familiar. AI can support family emails, staff updates, website announcements, event promotion, FAQs, plain-language rewrites, and even social media posts or storytelling content. It can also help with brainstorming headlines, tightening messaging, creating social captions, summarizing background information, and building out presentation talking points.

One of the biggest points I shared in the presentation is that better prompts lead to better first drafts. When people say AI does not work well, what they really mean is that they do not know how to work within the tool’s parameters. Nobody would say a calculator doesn’t work well just because they don't know how to use its functions. And the same should be applied here. What I have found is a lack of direction. Experience has shown that most useful prompts usually include a role, a task, an audience, a tone, a format, and the key details that matter. The more specific you are, the more usable the first draft becomes.

But even with a strong draft, the real work is still yours. So my advice is to use AI to get started.Remember to do your own edits; never take a script exactly as AI gives it to you. Finally, add the local details that AI could never know. That is where authentic school storytelling still lives.

Remember that is the key to treating AI like the tool it is, similar to my calculator analogy. That’s the important part. AI can help you structure a message, clean up a paragraph, or give you a place to begin. What it cannot do is fully capture the nuance of your school community, the personality of your district, the history behind a moment, or the small details that make a story feel real to the people who live it every day.

There is also a writing trap communicators should watch for. AI loves symmetry. It often writes in patterns that are easy to follow and easy to spot. That can look like repetitive lists, or all long, winding sentences packed with commas.

The fix is simple. Vary the rhythm. Combine ideas. Mix sentence lengths. Real writing has variety.

That is one of the easiest ways to make AI-assisted writing feel more natural and more human. A communicator should still shape the voice, sharpen the message, and make sure the final product sounds like it came from someone who knows the audience, the moment, and the mission.

I also talked about features inside ChatGPT that can make communication work more organized and repeatable. GPTs can help with recurring tasks. Projects can keep files, chats, and context together for long-running initiatives. Personalization can help shape outputs so they sound more like your voice and fit the way you work.

Still, none of this removes the need for human review. In fact, it makes it even more important. Communicators must review for accuracy, protect confidential information, edit for tone and audience, and make sure the final product still sounds like a real person talking to real people. AI can support the draft. It cannot provide you with the trust your community needs.

That is why I keep saying this: AI is a tool. Communicators are the strategy.

The best communicators will not be replaced by AI. They will be the ones who know how to use it wisely and responsibly, creating more space for stronger messaging, better engagement, and more strategic work.

As I continue these conversations, I am especially interested in helping communications professionals, school leaders, and organizations think through what practical, responsible use of AI actually looks like in the real world.

Because at the end of the day, the goal is not to sound more robotic or worse like another school or school district because AI gives you the exact same sentence. And we have all seen it. The goal is to communicate more clearly, more efficiently, and more effectively, without losing the human voice that matters most.