Setting the Year: What Questions Are School Leaders Asking and How Can They Prepare?
The PLaybook - July 2026
The big questions facing school leaders this year won't resolve into a single answer. AI may belong in the classroom, and there are times when it won’t. Students need both protection from technology and preparation for it. Teachers need opportunities for growth, and they don't need one more thing on their plate. Schools often approach these as either/or decisions, and so the questions linger. However, they’re tensions to hold, not questions that have one answer.
The real work in front of school leaders is not choosing a side, but deciding how to hold two (or more) tensions at the same time. This issue gives you three questions to put on the table with your leadership team, and three concrete ways to bring them into pre-planning conversations and early faculty meetings.
What's inside this PLaybook
Three questions worth putting on the table as you frame the year with your leadership team, and three activities for holding them as tensions to manage, not sides to pick:
1 How do we create learning students find genuinely meaningful when AI can produce the product of learning?
2 Do we owe students protection from technology or preparation for it?
3 How do we support educator growth without adding one more thing?
Right now, many school leaders are deciding what kind of year the school is going to have, and there is pressure to take a stance on questions like whether to ban AI or embrace it, limit screen time or hand students the tools, launch something new or protect teachers' time. Here are three activities to use in leadership or faculty team meetings as you start the year.
Three activities to try
Spectrum Line
Where does our school actually operate right now?
Draw a line with the two poles of your question at either end. Each person marks where the school actually operates right now, not where they wish it did. Then lead the team in talking about the gaps: who's surprised by where others landed, and why. This doesn’t require much preparation, and it’s a great opener before asking anyone to analyze (Activity 2: Polarity Map) or argue (Activity 3: Both/And).
Polarity Mapping
Is this a problem to solve or a polarity to manage?
Some big questions are "problems" with a right answer, and once you solve them, they stay solved. Others are "polarities" or two things that are both true and both necessary, where you can't pick one permanently without creating the downsides of ignoring the other. Polarity mapping makes visible, on a simple four-box grid, what's good about each side and what goes wrong if either side is the only thing you do. Filling in all four boxes is the exercise, not deciding which side wins.
Both/And
Can we state the strongest true case for both sides?
Choose a big question with no one right answer, and the rule of the game is that no one is allowed to just pick a side. Go around the table twice: first, everyone states the strongest true case for one pole; second round, the same people state the strongest true case for the other. It eliminates "camp-forming" because nobody gets to defend only one position, and it will surface the tensions your team will manage all year.
Setting the Year Toolkit
We've included all three activities in one Google Doc for your first leadership meeting, so your team can copy and type into them during the conversation.
See this in practice
When to allow for student use
In GOA's summer digital photography course, an AI tool critiques student photos to help students learn the language of reading an image. It notices things about light and composition that beginners miss. But the teaching team set it up so students can't see the AI's critique until they've written their own reflection first because the point of critique isn't getting feedback; it's learning how to see. If the machine looks first, the student never has to.
Three schools rethinking how teachers grow
The Potomac School, Gilman School, and Berkeley Carroll each built professional learning that starts with and builds on what teachers already do well. Choosing sustained and mission-aligned PD, over introducing one more new initiative, allows for flexible learning teachers can refine over time and builds school-wide change without losing sight of core values.
This month's PLaylist: Exploring the big questions
Use this section to build your own understanding before you bring the conversation to your team, and consider sharing a piece or two as pre-reading ahead of your first meeting.
- The debate over AI in education is stuck. Let's move it forward in responsible ways that truly serve students (Hechinger Report) — explicitly rejects the ban-or-embrace binary and argues for holding both at once.
- California schools debate how much AI belongs in classrooms (EdSource) — grounded, real-district example of a school trying to hold both sides (their "transparency badge" system is a nice concrete detail).
- What AI in Education Needs Next: Lessons from Youth Leaders Across Five Countries (World Economic Forum) — student-voice angle, global.
- Parents, Schools Clash Over Movement to Abolish Screens (The 74) — directly on the protection-vs-preparation tension.
- Strand-Based PD Provides Teachers With Autonomy (Edutopia) — about "initiative whiplash" and teacher growth, without adding more.
- The Power of Both/And: The Future of Leadership Demands Polarity Thinking (Forbes) — short, on-point summary of why leaders can't just pick a side.
- Navigating Complexity: Managing Polarities (Harvard Business Impact) — good overview and explanation of polarity mapping.
Have one conversation with a teacher that is not about AI, or screens, or PD specifically.
Ask them: What's one decision at this school that you wish we'd stop trying to settle for good?
Whatever they name may be your school's real polarity for the year.
