For Educators
A simple AI-writing policy for schools
Put the rule in one page. A scan starts a review. It does not issue the decision.
Students and teachers both do better when the AI-writing rule fits on one page. The policy below is a starting point. Change the examples to match your courses, then keep the limit: a detector score is a reason to look, not a verdict.
You can also adapt the longer academic integrity policy template.
What students may do
State this in plain language for each assignment. A single school-wide line is not enough, because a lab report and a personal essay are different tasks.
- Allowed: brainstorming topics, checking grammar, asking for an explanation of a source the student has already read.
- Allowed only if disclosed: using an AI tool to outline, or to rewrite a paragraph the student drafted. The disclosure names the tool and what it changed.
- Not allowed: submitting generated prose as the student’s own analysis, or asking a tool to produce the citations, data, or reflection the assignment exists to assess.
Put the line for that assignment on the prompt, not only in a handbook nobody opens in week one.
What a scan is for
Teachers may scan submitted work to see whether passages need a closer look. On Certaffy, that look is the highlighted report, not the percentage alone. Bands used in review:
- 0–29% — low signal. Ordinary marking.
- 30–74% — inspect highlights, drafts, and citations.
- 75% or higher — elevated signal. Meet with the student before any penalty.
The scan does not prove authorship. A human essay can be flagged. An edited AI essay can be missed. Say that in the policy so families hear it before anyone is accused. The false-positive guide is the staff note that belongs next to this paragraph.
What happens when a passage is flagged
Write the steps in order, and follow them the same way for every student.
- The teacher reads the highlights in context and checks that the file text matches the submission.
- The teacher asks the student to explain those passages and, when the assignment required them, to show an outline, draft, or source.
- The student may respond in writing within a set number of days.
- A grade penalty, if any, uses the school’s existing misconduct process. The PDF report can sit in that file. It is not the process.
How teachers should review AI writing is the matching classroom routine. Academic Pro ($9 a month, or $72 a year) is what you need for unlimited scans and a PDF you can attach to the file. Plans are on pricing.
What the policy should not say
Do not promise that any tool “detects AI with certainty.” Do not set an automatic fail at a percentage. Do not apply a harsher reading to students who write in a formal or learned style. Those are the cases where a score is easiest to misuse.
One page, the same steps every time, and a person at the end of them. That is a policy a department can actually use.