I am a parent before I am anything else. When I visit a school, I notice the things every parent notices: whether the children look settled, whether the teachers seem supported, whether the place feels calm.
Lately I have started asking one more question and it has quietly become the most useful question I ask. I ask the school how it handles Artificial Intelligence.
I do not ask because I am worried about AI. I ask because the answer tells me how the school is run.
AI is a management question, not a technology question
AI has arrived in South African classrooms whether or not anyone planned for it. Learners use it to explain difficult concepts and summarise textbooks. Teachers use it to draft lesson plans and cut down admin. Parents use it at the kitchen table when long division, Shakespeare or Grade 9 science feels like a distant memory.
Every school is now dealing with the same reality. What separates them is not how much technology they have bought. It is whether they have the governance, the systems and the communication habits to handle something new without losing control of it.
That is why AI has become such a useful test. A school that has thought carefully about AI has almost always thought carefully about everything else. A school with no answer usually has no answer for a great deal more than AI.
Here are the five questions I ask, and what I listen for in the answers.
1. Is there a written AI policy and can you tell me where to find it?
Imagine three learners. One asks AI to explain a difficult maths concept, then completes the homework independently. Another uses AI to tidy the grammar in an essay they have already written. A third submits an AI generated assignment as their own work.
All three have used AI. Should all three be treated the same way?
Without clear guidance, learners, families and even teachers will answer that question differently and fairness disappears. What I listen for is not how sophisticated the policy is. It is whether it exists, whether it is written down, whether it was shared with parents and guardians, and whether it is applied consistently.
A school that can produce its AI policy on request can usually produce its assessment policy, its absentee protocol and its disciplinary procedure just as easily. That is the real signal.
2. Who looks after our family's information and how?
Most AI tools ask users to type in information or upload documents, and not every tool handles that information in the same way. Learner records, assessment data and confidential school documents should never be loaded into a public AI platform without permission.
So I ask a simple question: where does our family's information live and who can see it?
A school that runs its administration on a proper school management system can answer immediately. It knows which records sit where, who has access to them and what its obligations are under the Protection of Personal Information Act. A school running on a patchwork of spreadsheets, personal laptops and group chats cannot answer because nobody actually knows.
Good AI governance is only possible on top of good data governance. The foundation has to come first.
3. Are teachers supported or are they working it out alone?
Much of the AI conversation focuses on learners but teachers are navigating this too, usually while carrying a full teaching load.
AI genuinely can give teachers time back. It can help with lesson ideas, differentiation, drafting and routine admin. It only helps, though, where the underlying workload is already organised. If marks, attendance, reports and parent communication are still being pulled together by hand at the end of every term, AI does not remove the burden. It adds one more thing to manage.
So I ask two things. What training do teachers receive on how AI works, where it fails and what the ethical limits are? And what systems does the school give them, so that the admin is under control before AI is added to the mix?
4. Would the school and I give the same answer?
Many parents are already using AI at home. I certainly do. If the school has not communicated its expectations clearly, families will unintentionally encourage habits that conflict with classroom rules and children end up caught between two sets of instructions.
So I listen to how the school communicates in general. Do families hear about things early, through one reliable channel or do they find out late, through a class group, in a version that has already been passed along three times?
A school that communicates well about AI is usually a school that communicates well about fees, timetable changes, events and concerns. That is the school where I know I will not be the last person to find out something about my own child.
5. Are you teaching my children to think?
The most important question is not about technology at all.
AI can produce an answer in seconds. It cannot supply curiosity, judgement, creativity or the willingness to sit with a hard problem. The learners who will thrive are not the ones who know the most AI tools. They are the ones who can ask a better question, verify what they are told, recognise bias and change their minds when the evidence changes.
Those skills do not come from a policy document. They come from teachers who have the time, the support and the headspace to teach properly. Which brings the whole conversation back to how well the school is run.
What I am actually looking for
I am not looking for the school with the most technology. I am looking for the school with the strongest foundation because a strong foundation is what allows everything else, including AI, to be handled well.
A strong foundation looks like clear policies that people actually follow. Accurate information in one place rather than five. Teachers who have time to teach. Parents and guardians who are informed rather than surprised. Leadership that starts a difficult conversation before it is forced to.
Get that right and AI becomes something a school can shape on its own terms. Get it wrong and every new technology becomes one more thing to survive.
I would be asking these questions as a parent regardless because the answers tell me whether my children will be in a place that is genuinely ready for what comes next.
Schools do not need to have every answer today. They do need to have begun the conversation.
AI will change how our children learn. It should never change why they learn: to question, to discover, to solve problems and to become thoughtful, capable human beings.
Donata Hart is a mom and tech specialist