Award-winning principals describe how AI is changing K-12 schools

Researchers at Baylor University and William & Mary interviewed nine award-winning US principals about AI in K-12 schools and found that the school leaders see AI reshaping how teachers differentiate instruction and how students learn, while its effect on leadership itself divides opinion. The study, “Perceptions of how AI has changed teaching, learning, and leading in K-12 schools: insights from award-winning principals”, was published on June 10, 2026, in “Frontiers in Education” by William L. Sterrett, Jayson W. Richardson, and Meredith A. Frey.

How the study was conducted

The authors selected recipients of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) Digital Principals Award, a programme that recognised principals who showed creative leadership in using technology for teaching and learning before it was sunset in 2022. Of the 18 awardees named between 2017 and 2022, nine agreed to take part, a 50% participation rate. Each principal completed a 45–60-minute video interview and agreed to be quoted by name. The exploratory qualitative study coded the transcripts against a three-part framework of teaching, learning, and leading, with member checking and audit trails. The article does not state when the interviews took place.

Source: Table 1, Sterrett, Richardson and Frey (2026), “Frontiers in Education”.

What principals said about AI in K-12 schools

On teaching, the principals described AI as a way to differentiate instruction, build quick assessments, and free teachers from drafting emails and lesson plans. One principal recounted a teacher who prompted an AI tool to connect the Pythagorean theorem to baseball for a seventh-grader who struggled in math. Several also noted teacher hesitancy, with some staff “afraid of it and finding reasons not to use it”, as principal Nick Indeglio reported.

On learning, participants pointed to chatbots that let history students question figures such as Alexander the Great, and to AI acting as a personalised tutor that principal Trevor Goertzen called a “great equity divide closer”. Robert Eichorn observed that “kids are always well ahead of us, and they’ve been for years.” Chris Lehmann described a senior who used an image generator to illustrate a story about her family’s immigration, stating that AI “enhanced process, but did not replace the thinking process”. A more cautious view came from Jethro Jones, who warned that “kids will always use AI to check off the box.”

Leadership gains time, but views diverge

The principals reported using AI to draft evaluations, memos, and letters, to convert observation notes into formal evaluation language, and to analyse standardised test data for interventions. Not all were convinced the technology changes leadership itself. Jones stated that AI “has mostly made it so that principals do the stupid things and the wasteful things that they’ve always been doing faster.” Kristina MacBury framed the shift differently: “Education is still the same. We still have the same purpose and the same why.”

The authors flag three limitations: the participants were recognised for digital leadership and may be more positive about AI than typical principals; the sample covered US secondary-level leaders only; and the awardees were likely early adopters.

How the findings compare with national surveys

The article places the interviews against recent US survey data. It cites Laird et al. (2025), in which 56% of students agreed that using AI in class made them feel less connected to their teacher and 78% of teachers agreed that student AI use added a burden of verifying whether work is a student’s own. It also cites Kaufman et al. (2025), in which 58% of 1,942 surveyed principals reported using AI in their jobs, and a 2025 Gallup finding that AI tools save teachers who use them about six hours per week.

Winss Solutions has covered the policy side of this shift in Policy for AI in Schools, A 10-Step 2025–2026 Implementation Guide, earlier survey evidence in Powerful AI influences how teachers teach and students learn, and the international picture in OECD 2026: How Generative AI Is Transforming Education.

Background

The NASSP Digital Principals Award was run by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the US organisation for middle-level and high school principals and other school leaders. The programme named three Digital Principals of the Year annually, honouring leaders who used technology to advance learning goals, and was discontinued in 2022. The new study draws on the final five award cohorts, from 2017 to 2022, to capture how this group of technology-forward school leaders now assesses AI. The authors received no funding for the work and declared no conflicts of interest, and the study was approved by Baylor University’s Institutional Review Board.

Sources: Frontiers in Education; NASSP

Featured image: photo by Green odette on Pexels (free Pexels license).

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Figen Sekin

I specialize in sustainability education, curriculum co-creation, and early-stage project strategy. At WINSS, I craft articles on sustainability, transformative AI, and related topics. When I’m not writing, you’ll find me chasing the perfect sushi roll, exploring cities around the globe, or unwinding with my dog Puffy — the world’s most loyal sidekick.