IGNITE English Resources

AI Policy

What Ontario's Teacher Federations Say About AI, and What It Means for Your Assignments

Two documents from Ontario's teacher federations now sit behind most staffroom conversations about AI. Neither is a ban, and neither is a sales pitch. Read together, they say something useful about how to design assignments, and one part of them is worth hearing if you buy resources like the ones on this site.

The Two Documents

The first is Generative Artificial Intelligence in K‑12 Ontario Education, a discussion paper from the Ontario Teachers' Federation and its affiliates, published in January 2026. It's written for policy makers, and it covers everything from procurement to privacy law. The second is the OSSTF/FEESO Member Advisory: Artificial Intelligence, a shorter 2026 guide written for secondary teachers and education workers themselves.

Both start from the same place. The OTF paper's position is that AI "can never replace or replicate the humanity required for quality teaching and learning." The OSSTF advisory says technological tools "can assist but never replace the essential role that humans play" in education. What follows is a summary in my own words, not a statement from either organisation, and both documents are worth reading in full.

The Worry at the Centre: Thinking That Gets Skipped

The OTF paper's sharpest concern is what it calls cognitive offloading. Every new tool has promised to take routine work off our hands so we can think harder, and the paper allows that AI might do some of that. But it draws a line that calculators never crossed: generative AI can do the problem-solving, reading comprehension, and argument that students are meant to be building, and because it produces finished essays and projects on request, students aren't pushed to develop those skills at all.

For an English teacher that's the whole issue in one paragraph. If the thing you collect can be produced without the thinking, the thinking stops being required. The answer isn't a better detector. It's moving the evidence of thinking to where you can see it, which is the argument behind the IGNITE Framework.

Triangulation Is the Answer They Point To

When the OTF paper describes the practical skills teachers need, it lands on something every Ontario teacher already knows from Growing Success: triangulating evidence. Student work sits alongside observations of students at work and conversations with them, their peers, and their teacher.

That's the most practical sentence in either document. A product on its own is now the weakest of the three sources, because it's the only one AI can produce. Observation and conversation can't be outsourced. An assignment that gathers all three, a draft written in the room, a conference about a choice the student made, a finished piece that has to match both, is already most of the way to being AI-resistant.

Privacy Is a Hard Line

The OSSTF advisory is at its most direct on privacy. Members should never enter or upload information that could identify a student, and it names academic profiles and assessment data alongside names, birthdates, and student numbers. It also asks teachers to know which tools their board has approved.

That rules out one of the most tempting uses of AI: pasting student writing into a chatbot to mark it or write feedback on it. It also shapes classroom activities. If students are going to work with AI output, the safest design is either a board-approved tool with no personal information in the prompt, or output the teacher generates once and prints for the class.

Professional Judgement Stays with You

Both documents return to professional judgement repeatedly. The OTF paper wants policies that affirm the teacher's right to decide when and why AI is used, or not used, for planning, assessment, and communication. The OSSTF advisory says the use of technology in the classroom should rest on the professional judgement of the teacher, with an exception for technology prescribed in a student's IEP.

A framework can inform that judgement. It can't replace it, and any resource that tries should make you uneasy.

The Wider Costs They Want Everyone to See

Both documents list risks that go well beyond cheating: output that's inaccurate or simply invented, bias carried in from training data, unresolved questions about creators' intellectual property, the electricity and water data centres consume, and concerns about jobs. The OTF paper adds one that belongs in every English classroom. Chatbots tend towards sycophancy, agreeing with the user even when the user is wrong.

These aren't only reasons for caution. They're material. Checking a confident claim against a text, noticing whose voice is missing from an answer, and asking who benefits from a tool are all things English already teaches. That's where AI literacy belongs in our subject.

A Caution Worth Hearing About Resources Like These

The OTF paper is blunt about education technology companies that position themselves as pedagogical experts, selling teacher training and classroom resources that ultimately promote AI adoption. It says professional learning about AI in teaching shouldn't be led by corporations, and it calls for learning that's initiated, developed, and led by teachers.

That's a fair test to apply to anything you buy, including what's on this site. IGNITE is built by a teacher, not a technology company. It sells no AI tools and never requires a paid one. Where an activity uses AI, it's one your school or district has already approved, and nothing that identifies a student goes into it.

Where to Start

With one assignment you already use. The Audit asks eight questions about it and shows how much of the thinking a chatbot could do for your students, and the first thing worth changing. It's a quick way to test your own work against the concern at the centre of both documents.

Questions Teachers Ask

Do the federations say teachers shouldn't use AI?

No. Both documents leave the decision with the teacher's professional judgement. They ask for caution about privacy, accuracy, and bias, and for policies that protect that judgement rather than replace it.

Can I paste student writing into a chatbot to give feedback?

The OSSTF advisory says members should never enter information that could identify a student, and it names assessment data explicitly. Marking or giving feedback through a chatbot runs straight into that guidance.

Is this article endorsed by either federation?

No. It's my own summary of two publicly available documents, and it doesn't speak for either organisation. Both are worth reading in full on the federations' own websites.

Where This Comes From

Everything above is drawn from two publicly available documents. Read them in full rather than relying on any summary, including this one.

Developed by George O'Toole: over 35 years in secondary English, Head of Department, Educational Technology Coach, Faculty of Education instructor. Meet George