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The EDiT Spotlight with Derek Jaques
Voices from the frontlines of education and technology
EDT&Partners
AI in Education
Schools & Universities
The EDiT Spotlight highlights individuals across the education and knowledge ecosystem who are shaping how learning evolves in practice. In each edition, we feature a conversation with a leader or innovator working at the intersection of education, technology, and the future of knowledge.
In this edition of The EDiT Spotlight, we feature Derek Jaques.
Derek is Assistant Superintendent of Camas School District in Camas, Washington. He works with the superintendent on districtwide goals, professional development and the management of district resources. He worked in information technology before moving into education, then spent seven years as a classroom teacher and seven as a building administrator. He has now spent 12 years in district-level leadership. He also teaches in teacher training programs and has served on several legislative workgroups in Washington State.
Derek was a teacher when smartphones first arrived, and he believes schools were badly unprepared for their effect on students and families. That effect is well understood now, and he treats it as the lesson AI planning has to learn from. For him, that means thoughtful implementation, clear policies on responsible use and close attention to how students develop.
In our conversation, Derek explains why Camas chose to build confidence with its adults before its students, and where he draws a firm line on AI in discipline and IEP decisions. He also makes the case for a balanced approach to student access, one that limits AI for the youngest learners while still preparing older students to use it well.
Our conversation with Derek Jaques
1. As a district leader, you work across the whole span of the district rather than inside one building, which means you see the distance between what gets decided at district level and what actually happens in classrooms. What have you learned about closing that distance, and what does it take to get a district-wide decision to land well in a building?
In my experience, the key to closing the distance between the district office and the classroom is to authentically engage the staff who provide direct service to students, through individual connections, site visits and collaborative team meetings. It has also been incredibly valuable to check in on the progress of new implementations regularly, with a willingness to course correct when needed.
Fundamentally, I believe in empowering staff who work directly with students to take part in decision-making and to bring student and staff voice into each implementation. We also have very strong community engagement in our district, and parents have been at the forefront of this work over the last year and a half. The engagement of our entire education community is a critical component of this work.
2. You're building a professional development sequence across the full 2026–2027 year rather than a single August training. What does a sequence make possible that a launch event can't, and how do you keep it useful as the tools change?
Much like learning in the classroom, one of the keys to high-quality professional development is revisiting and applying concepts regularly over time. In our district, we try to present a concept, allow time and space for staff to use the tool or initiative, and then revisit it with deeper learning and application.
While a launch is a key component of a successful implementation, the ongoing support, application and adjustments along the way are key to long-term success.
3. New York City just paused student-facing generative AI for every student through eighth grade, roughly 600,000 students, and disabled the AI components of more than 38 approved programs. Washington's OSPI guidance points the other direction, toward adoption with human-centered guardrails. Camas is aligning to OSPI in the same month New York went the other way. Where do you think New York is right, and where do you think they might want to reconsider this strategy later?
Like many things in life, balance is a key component in education. Our philosophy is certainly to limit technology use and time for our young learners, but it is important that we thoughtfully teach our students responsible use and boundaries. We agree that very early learners (K-5) should have very limited access. We also need to prepare our students for a future with artificial intelligence.
Our Human→AI→Human process requires that we keep human decision-making at the center of using the AI tool. We aim to teach responsible use and understanding of artificial intelligence. We believe that, much like other tools in education, AI needs to be implemented thoughtfully and intentionally.
4. Camas has started with back-office and staff-facing work ahead of anything student-facing. New York is allowing a version of that same split: teachers and administrators can use AI, students below ninth grade can't. Is sequencing the adults first a deliberate position about readiness, or a practical judgment about where to build confidence first?
This is a great question, and the answer for our district is yes to both! We have found that many of our students are well beyond our adults in their "creative" use of large language models, but ethical considerations were generally not present in their use. While our adults were often aware of AI, there was a large disparity in use.
Our goal with our adult learners was to demystify AI, demonstrate potential use cases and show how it could improve human-to-human time by automating or assisting with tasks.
5. Two jurisdictions have now set clear boundaries in this territory. Washington's proposed SSB 5956, which passed the state Senate this year, would have kept automated systems from replacing staff judgment in discipline decisions. The District of Columbia's new model policy keeps AI out of discipline, teacher evaluations, and IEP eligibility determinations. Where is your own line between using AI for the paperwork around a discipline case and the decision itself, and how do you write that line into a policy so it's clear to staff in practice?
Human judgment and responsibility sit at the core of each of our policies. We rely on the Human→AI→Human concept for our work, and we also put specific boundaries in place around AI use for intensely human endeavors such as discipline decisions and IEP eligibility determinations.
AI can be used as a tool, but human engagement and decision-making will always be a critical component of the educational landscape.
6. You're developing teacher leaders across the district to train their colleagues. Train-the-trainer models can spread capacity or concentrate it. How are you designing it so the capability spreads past the leads?
Our goal with the trainer model is to grow the impact and engage all staff in thoughtful professional development that, we hope, inspires others to teach and lead within our system. We are lucky to have a structure in our district that supports teachers in developing professional development and delivering it to their peers.
Our goal is to continue using teachers to support each other in sharing best practices, delivering professional development activities and learning from each other in meaningful ways.
7. The back-office work is aiming at measurable time savings. Where do you want that time to go, and what makes sure it lands there?
Our goal in using AI in the "back office" is to create more time for human-to-human engagement. Our counselors are a specific example. Counselors serve so many roles within the school system, and any time we can support them with tools, it helps them connect more often and more deeply with students.
Budget analysis and sorting student outcome data are other areas where AI can support our administrative staff and allow for more human-to-human connection within our system.
A Closing Thought
Derek Jaques watched one technology arrive in schools before anyone had a plan for it, and his approach to AI is built around keeping that from happening again.
His observation that Camas students were already ahead of their teachers in creative use of AI, with little thought for ethics, complicates the idea that waiting is the cautious option. If students are using these tools anyway, a pause in the classroom leaves open the question of who teaches them to use AI responsibly, and how long a district can leave that question unanswered.
EDT&Partners
The EDT&Partners Editorial Team brings together education and technology experts sharing insights, stories, and strategies shaping the future of learning.
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