Reply from Ministry of Education and Child Care

After months of waiting and 1,900 signatures from people across BC, we have finally received a response from the Ministry of Education and Child Care.

The short version is that they see AI in schools as something for school districts to decide, and they are not taking responsibility.

We have included our original email to the Ministry and their response.

The fight is not over, skip to the end to see where we go from here.

Our email

We originally emailed the Ministry on February 10, 2026. We received an email acknowledging receipt, but nothing further.

We sent another email on May 26, 2026:

Dear Minister Beare,

My name is Ben Humphreys, I am writing to you as a parent and founder of PACES - Parents for AI Caution in Educational Spaces. We are a parent group founded in early 2026 to counter AI tools being deployed in schools without sufficient care.

Our petition to the Ministry of Education and Child Care in British Columbia for a two-year pause on AI in schools in BC has now gained over 600 signatures in a month.  Signees are parents and residents of BC who are concerned that chatbots and LLMs are being put into classrooms.

Research shows AI usage is harmful to learning

Since ChatGPT's launch in 2022, many studies have been published on the effects of generative AI on students. The results are overwhelmingly negative.

For learning, its use is associated with worse learning outcomes (Kosmyna 2025). Students who used AI perform worse than those who never used it and give up quickly (Bastani 2024,  Liu et al 2026). Users of generative AI over-estimate how well they know a subject (Fernandes 2025). Frequent use of AI can reduce critical thinking (Gerlich 2024). AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Copilot, can lower children’s emotional resilience and weaken responsible decision-making and harm relationships.

There is also extensive evidence of AI's harm to mental health. AI chatbots have told children how to commit suicide, and talked to them about sexual topics. In adults, AI chatbots have triggered psychosis and are part of a mental health epidemic.

Ministry of Education and Child Care has a precedent of restricting harmful technologies in classrooms

In the past, when it was clear that cell phones had a negative impact on the education and mental health of students, the Ministry of Education and Child Care created a policy that required school boards to restrict cellphones in classrooms.

According to the recent American Psychological Organization’s health advisory, AI could have greater negative effects than cell phones on the education and mental health of students.

We believe that the science makes it clear that a pause on AI is in the best interests of students, and that the BC Ministry of Education and Child Care has a duty to protect them from preventable harm.

We would love a chance to discuss this important and urgent topic with you or other representatives from the Ministry of Education and Child Care.

Ben Humphreys

PACES Vancouver

Reply from the Ministry

Dear Ben Humphreys:

Thank you for your emails of May 26, 2026, and July 8, 2026, addressed to the Honourable Lisa Beare, Minister of Education and Child Care, regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI) in British Columbia schools. Your email was forwarded to our office for response.

Keeping students safe is a top priority of the Ministry of Education and Child Care and we recognize AI is becoming more present in classrooms and online spaces across the province. AI has the potential to support student learning, improve accessibility for students with disabilities and diverse abilities, and enhance school operations; however, these benefits depend on its responsible use.

British Columbia’s K-12 curriculum is designed to prepare students to succeed in a rapidly changing, digital world by building strong foundations in creativity, critical thinking, digital literacy, and the responsible use of technologies. While the curriculum does include learning standards related to computer use and digital citizenship, the learning standards of the curriculum do not mandate the use of AI as part of student learning. Any decisions about the use of AI in K-12 classrooms are made at the school and district level by individual teachers and administrators. 

The Ministry’s approach to AI has been to provide high-level guidance and considerations for school districts so they can incorporate AI tools effectively, safely, and equitably. As part of this work, the Ministry developed several documents for the K-12 sector, including Considerations for Using AI Tools in K-12 Schools. These resources emphasize a human-centered approach where AI tools are used as a complement to teacher-student relationships, rather than a replacement for them. There are also resources and training on the erase website to support students and staff to stay safe online.

It is important to note that education in BC is co-governed by the Ministry of Education and Child Care and locally elected boards of education, whose responsibilities are set out in legislation. The Ministry sets high-level policy and provides funding to school districts, while boards of education are responsible for administering and managing schools in their district and determine local policy that will best meet the needs of their school population.

We encourage you to continue to communicate with local school districts to discuss their policies regarding the use of AI in schools.

Thank you for taking the time to write.

Sincerely,

Deputy Minister’s Office

Ministry of Education and Child Care

Our Thoughts

We are obviously incredibly disappointed that the Ministry has decided to continue allow students to be harmed by generative AI and chatbots in classrooms.

Their response is boiler-plate, completely missing all of the points of our original email, and including a nonsensical reference to an online safety document that is not relevant to AI.

Ministry of Education does not address scientific evidence

The Ministry's reply does not address any of the points that we raised in our original email:

• Their reply does not address the significant scientific research that shows how generative AI and chatbots harm student learning and mental health.
• Their reply takes care to mention that AI has "the potential to support learning", but does not mention any ways in which AI might actually do this.

Ironically, the document that they cite in their email, Considerations for Using AI Tools in K-12 Schools as the high-level guidance for school distructs includes the following:

Evidence-based effectiveness: Seek AI tools with a proven track record of effectiveness backed by research or case studies demonstrating that they deepen learning for students.

Ministry issues bans on cellphones, but not AI

The Ministry states that they set "high-level policy" to imply that a pause on AI in classrooms is not a "high-level policy".

However in the past, the Ministry did issue a mandate to schools banning cellphones when they deemed a technology was harming student learning. Something that we brought up in our original email and was not addressed in the Ministry's reply.

This is clearly inconsistent.

Prioritizing AI over human well-being

The Ministry's reply is unfortunately part of a larger trend of governments prioritizing AI over human well-being.

Both the Federal government and BC government are strongly pushing for AI to be taught in schools. As part of the Federal government's "AI for All" strategy, it has charged Amii (Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute) with creating a curriculum for teaching AI in K-12 classes, and the BC government's Look West Strategy states:

We're setting up a K-12 Advisory Committee to explore the integration of AI platforms and skills acquisitions into the B.C. K-12 school systems to encourage early exposure and skills development.

These mean that the Ministry of Education and Child Care is unable to mention the harms that AI has on students, without undermining the significant financial and political capital that is being spent by the federal and provincial governments on pushing AI.

Where do we go from here

We still hold out hope that by continuing the petition, we can show how many people care about making classrooms where students are not harmed by generative AI and chatbots.

In the short term, there are upcoming School Trustee Board elections in October where we have a chance to change things on a local level.