Central Valley CSD

The "Policy Forge": How Central Valley CSD is Co-Authoring the Future of AI Policy with Discover

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Background

District: Central Valley CSD
Partner: ThoughtExchange
Enrollment: 2,300 students

Key Results:

90%

Policy draft readiness

before legal review by policy service attorneys

Like many districts across New York, Central Valley CSD (CVCSD) recognized that the "AI Genie" was out of the bottle. Superintendent Jeremy Rich saw a looming "AI Wild West" and knew that a generic, boilerplate policy wouldn't suffice for his community. The district had already run successful Advanced Engagements with parents and staff to take the pulse of the community but they faced a significant hurdle: how do you turn 2,300 voices into a legally-defensible, Board-approved policy that protects teachers and empowers students?

What ThoughtExchange partners are saying

“It’s night and day from our previous survey provider, which took months to return our results, and by then, the data was no longer useful. ThoughtExchange allows our administrators to focus on actions sooner; rather than having to dig through the data, it’s readily available to them." Dr. Tammy Blakely, Executive Director, Student Support Services, Irvine Unified School District

“When you ask open-ended questions, and you have 300 students or 150 staff members respond, it’s challenging to go through those one by one. Having the AI do that for us instantly was so helpful. I could say, ‘Here's the summary. These are the top three things they said, and these are our students’ top concerns.’ ThoughtExchange neatly packaged them so the data is easy to present. I can show a summary of those open-ended questions, where you get to the heart of those concerns." Caitlyn Kienitz, Communications and Marketing Coordinator, Eastpointe Community Schools, Eastpointe, MI

The Challenge

At the same time, the school board made expectations clear. They wanted data. Not anecdotes. Not reassurance. Evidence that progress was real.

Key Pain Points

How to turn 2,300 stakeholder voices into a legally-defensible, Board-approved AI policy
Generic boilerplate policies would not reflect the community's unique values and concerns
Raw survey data alone was insufficient to hand directly to policy service attorneys for legal review
Needed a framework that protects teachers and empowers students simultaneously
Tight timeline requiring Board approval by April/May 2026 for September implementation
The Discover Solution: The "Policy Forge" Strategy

The Discover Solution: The "Policy Forge" Strategy

Collaborating with ThoughtExchange, CVCSD utilized Discover as a strategic synthesis engine. Instead of handing a pile of raw survey data to their policy service attorneys, the district created a "Policy Forge" collection that triangulated four distinct data streams into one actionable roadmap.

The real power of Discover emerged when the district moved beyond a simple draft. The AI engine produced a Targeted Consideration Checklist - a specific set of high-priority themes based on stakeholder data that the policy service attorneys needed to address to make the policy "Central Valley Compliant."

Stakeholder Voice
Policy service boilerplate policies provided the legal skeleton for the framework.
Structural Baseline
The existing CVCSD Code of Conduct was layered in to ensure disciplinary alignment.
Behavioral Standards
Results from Parent and Staff Advanced Engagements were integrated as the foundation of community sentiment.
Instructional Reality
A "Red Light/Green Light" framework was created to define classroom-specific guardrails for AI use.

What They Said

"Discover allowed us to take a smorgasbord of ingredients policy service templates, our Code of Conduct, and our community's voice and fuse them into a product that was 90% ready before we even sat down with legal. It makes the difficult work of policy creation easy, transparent, and grounded in the classroom." Jeremy Rich
Superintendent of Schools

Implementation Timeline

Mar 2, 2026

Superintendent Jeremy Rich presents the "AI Policy Forge" model at the NYSCOSS panel.

Mid-Mar 2026

Discover synthesis finalized; "Policy Consideration Checklist" delivered to policy service legal team.

Apr 2026

Final draft reviewed by the CVCSD Board of Education

May 2026

Professional Development sessions launched for staff based on the approved "Red Light/Green Light" framework.

Sep 2026

Full implementation of the CVCSD AI Policy.

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