Bringing ChatGPT for Teachers to more U.S. school districts

When we introduced ChatGPT for Teachers in 2025 to nearly 150,000 teachers and staff, our goal was to give educators a secure place to explore AI, understand where it is useful, and help shape how it should be used in education. Today, we are expanding this work to 55 additional school systems across 20 states, bringing ChatGPT for Teachers to over 100,000 more educators and staff.

The new cohort of district partnerships includes 1 in 5 of America’s 20 largest public school districts and some of the country’s most diverse school systems. With this new cohort, OpenAI is now working with more than 100 K–12 organizations across 30 states to provide free access and training to over 300,000 educators and staff.

Alongside this, we’re also announcing a data privacy agreement spanning 16 states, a first for the industry, that provides a common framework for districts to evaluate ChatGPT for Teachers against their student data privacy requirements, helping make responsible AI adoption simpler and more consistent across school systems.

Our work continues to be guided by the belief that AI should support learning, not shortcut it, and educators should remain in control of how AI shapes classroom experiences. In this spirit, ChatGPT for Teachers continues to be available to administrators, faculty, and educators only. ChatGPT for Teachers remains a free tool for verified U.S. K–12 educators through June 2028.

For school systems, responsible AI adoption also requires clear privacy protections and a way for district leaders to understand and manage how tools are used.

OpenAI is also expanding the privacy infrastructure that helps districts adopt AI responsibly. We’re introducing a 16-state National Data Privacy Agreement through the Student Data Privacy Consortium⁠(opens in a new window) framework, giving districts in participating states a recognized path to evaluate and adopt ChatGPT for Teachers without negotiating separate agreements district by district. This is designed to meet districts and states within the privacy process they already use, adapting to state and local requirements, and making responsible adoption easier.

Today, our signed General Offers cover 16 states: Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. California is also covered by a separate agreement.

For school systems, responsible AI adoption depends not only on access, but on governance, privacy, procurement, and trust. This work builds on statewide agreements OpenAI has already signed and reflects a broader commitment to meeting districts where they are, with the legal and privacy protections their communities require.

ChatGPT for Teachers was designed with education-grade privacy, security, and administrative controls. Data shared in a ChatGPT for Teachers workspace is not used to train our models by default, and school and district leaders can bring educators into a managed workspace⁠(opens in a new window) with role-based controls designed to support schools’ FERPA requirements.

As AI evolves from answering questions to helping carry out increasingly complex, multi-step workflows, access to tools like ChatGPT alone won’t be enough. Through our shared implementation model, OpenAI is working alongside districts to provide hands-on training, support for district leaders, peer learning across school systems, and ongoing guidance to help educators build the skills and confidence to take advantage of these capabilities. Through this close collaboration, feedback from districts helps OpenAI understand what educators and administrators need next.

This structure is a glimpse at what responsible AI adoption can look like at scale when teachers experiment in a secure workspace, districts implement AI with appropriate oversight and expert guidance, and educators and leaders share what works across classrooms, schools, and communities.

“Education has always helped young people prepare for the world they’re going to inherit. In the age of AI, students need educators and schools that help them build judgment, confidence, and agency with these tools,” said Leah Belsky, Vice President of Education, OpenAI. “By partnering with educators, our goal is to give teachers time, training, and a community to learn from one another, and they help us build alongside the people who know students best.”

Lynwood Unified was one of the first districts to join OpenAI’s first K–12 cohort. Their vision is clear: treat AI as an equity issue, prioritize privacy, and give educators the support to explore it responsibly. Through initial training and ongoing space to experiment and learn with peers, faculty are growing more confident and using AI to enhance their teaching. That experience also helps educators develop an informed point of view so they can guide students when questions about AI arise.

Across our work with educators, we’re seeing that the most immediate value often starts with time: helping teachers adapt lessons, draft family communications, prepare substitute materials, and move through recurring administrative work faster, so they can spend more attention on students. In a privacy-preserving OpenAI analysis⁠(opens in a new window) from January 1 to July 16, educators sent more than 1.9 million messages related to time-saving tasks, including 900,000 about report cards and progress reports, 800,000 about lesson planning, and more than 100,000 each about substitute plans and teacher-evaluation materials.

Tools like the K-12 Educator plugin support work like lesson planning, adapting materials, analyzing information, and creating classroom resources, while giving school and district leaders administrative controls and education-grade privacy and security protections.

We’re also continuing training through OpenAI Academy, our work with districts, and the National Academy for AI Instruction with the American Federation of Teachers, a five-year initiative designed to equip 400,000 K–12 educators with practical AI skills.

This summer, more than 1,600 teachers, administrators, and district leaders are participating in hands-on AI Skills Jams hosted by OpenAI Academy and in partnership with the Walton Family Foundation. Teachers are working alongside peers and OpenAI mentors on challenges they already know well—from adapting a lesson for different learners and communicating with families to navigating district guidance and reducing administrative work.

Those sessions are already showing what teacher-led adoption can look like in practice. In Fairfax, an elementary music teacher brought her curriculum, grading policies, district regulations, and teaching approach into ChatGPT to create a planning resource she could use throughout the school year. A fourth-grade teacher in Jonesboro used ChatGPT to turn lengthy lesson plans into focused 30- to 40-minute lessons centered on the day’s required standards. Chicago educators described using ChatGPT to simulate science experiments, support student animation projects, and analyze more than 200 novels for gaps in representation. In San Bernardino, a principal used it to tackle a complex scheduling task she said could otherwise have taken hours or days.

Across the first Skills Jams, 93% of participants said they left with something they could use again, and 96% said they planned to apply what they learned within 30 days. Just as importantly, educators told us that some of their best ideas came from seeing how colleagues approached the same tools differently.

AI in education works best when teachers lead. Our goal is to give them the tools, trust, training, and voice to do exactly that.

New district partnerships include: Abilene Independent School District (TX), Adlai E. Stevenson High School District 125 (IL), Baltimore City Public Schools (MD), Boise School District (ID), Clarkstown Central School District (NY), El Dorado County Office of Education (CA), Epic Charter Schools (OK), Flagler Schools (FL), Fort Worth Independent School District (TX), Frisco Independent School District (TX), Humble Independent School District (TX), Kern High School District (CA), Killeen Independent School District (TX), Laramie County School District 1 (WY), Lewisville Independent School District (TX), Los Angeles County Office of Education (CA), Needham Public Schools (MA), New Trier Township High School District 203 (IL), Northside Independent School District (TX), Oakland Schools (MI), Orange County Department of Education (CA), Orange County Public Schools (FL), Pocantico Hills Central School District (NY), Rye Country Day School (NY), Santa Cruz County Office of Education (CA), Sarasota County Schools (FL), St. Vrain Valley Schools (CO), Township High School District 211 (IL), Ventura Unified School District (CA), Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VA), Westminster Public Schools (CO)