{"id":4201,"date":"2026-01-04T02:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T02:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/01\/04\/how-hollywoods-top-private-schools-are-embracing-ai\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T02:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T02:49:08","slug":"how-hollywoods-top-private-schools-are-embracing-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/01\/04\/how-hollywoods-top-private-schools-are-embracing-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"How Hollywood’s Top Private Schools Are Embracing AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

\n\tAlmost immediately after ChatGPT<\/a> was first released in late 2022, alarm bells sounded in the education world about how it would negatively impact learning. That year,\u00a0The Atlantic<\/em>\u00a0ran stories with headlines like \u201cThe College Essay <\/a>I<\/a>s Dead<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe End of High School English<\/a>.\u201d The predictions were that unleashing AI to the world at large would lead to an exponential rise in cheating at school and that student essays would cease to be original.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI mean since day one the narrative in education has been really focused on cheating. And AI is still mostly seen as that thing that kids are using to cheat. So, you know, let\u2019s not be naive. There are lots of kids using AI to cheat,\u201d says Leon Furze, an educational consultant and the author of\u00a0Practical AI Strategies: Engaging with Generative AI<\/a> in Education<\/em>. But he adds, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to kind of go beyond that, I think and meet the students where they\u2019re at with the technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCut to 2025 and that is what\u2019s happening at many of Los Angeles\u2019 top private schools<\/a>, where panic has been replaced with pragmatism.<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, there are guardrails. Many schools carve out AI-free zones for test-taking, essay writing and other creative endeavors. \u201cA lot more work, especially writing assignments, is now done exclusively in class,\u201d says showrunner and writer Anthony Sparks (Bel-Air<\/em>,\u00a0Queen Sugar<\/em>), who has a child at the prestigious Harvard-Westlake School.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe same applies at L.A.\u2019s Sierra Canyon School (where recent graduates have included Bronny and Bryce James). Says Noah B. Salomon, the school\u2019s English department chair, \u201cFor most assignments, in order to preserve training in independent critical thinking, we create an environment where students cannot use AI [such as] in-class writing, participating, graded discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut as generative AI continues to seep into seemingly every facet of society, administrators and teachers are increasingly looking at creative ways to engage with the technology with an eye toward preparing students for the real world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLast July, The Buckley School (which Laura Dern, Bret Easton Ellis and Paris Hilton once attended) held a one-week\u00a0AI Intensive summer camp\u00a0<\/a>on campus ($1,500 for the week), where middle-school-age students could learn everything from \u201cAI + Art\u201d to how to \u201cleverage machine learning to help first responders allocate resources in crisis situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt Windward School (which Josh Groban and Zoe Kazan attended), a\u00a0special education and tech team<\/a>\u00a0has been working on helping teachers deepen their understanding of ChatGPT, Google Gemini and MagicSchool AI (an education focused AI platform).<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd at Sierra Canyon School, the administration has formed a partnership with AI education platform edYOU, which provides students with\u00a0personalized chatbot avatars\u00a0<\/a>that can help them with everything from tutoring to tracking their coursework.<\/p>\n

\n\tSierra Canyon\u2019s Salomon details additional ways that the school is engaging students in the use of AI. \u201cWe have asked teachers to experiment, to find ways to leverage the power of AI in their teaching and to encourage students to use AI in a way that is ethical and that does not interfere with their learning or their curiosity.\u00a0For example, students in a literature class might be asked to have a conversation with ChatGPT about a particular chapter of a novel, but they will be required to use specific quotes from the novel to challenge ChatGPT\u2019s initial reading. Students might be encouraged to use AI to create quizzes on material or to have AI review an essay to offer another source of feedback on structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd for every student who wants to use AI as a crutch or shortcut, there are other students who are concerned about using it responsibly, even sparingly.\u00a0\u201cI had a 13-year-old student who asked me, \u2018Even if my school teaches us how to use AI, should we?\u2019\u201d shares Furze. \u201cAnd she was really concerned that if she starts using AI at 13 years old, that by the time she\u2019s 18, she won\u2019t be able to use her own brain anymore. There are really young students who are genuinely concerned about this. On the flip side, I\u2019m also seeing that there\u2019s a lot of pressure with students to use AI because they think they\u2019ll be outcompeted. There\u2019s a lot of perception that, \u2018if I don\u2019t use AI, the student next to me is going to use AI and they\u2019re going to do better. So I have to use it to stay competitive.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAdds Stacie Mu\u00f1oz, director of educational innovation and technology services at Oakwood School (whose alumni include Chris Pine and Lily-Rose Depp), \u201cI think there is an assumption that all kids are using AI all the time and I will say that I have talked to many kids who are not falling in that camp and are really hesitant about AI and actually like look down upon others for using it. You know, these kids are really smart now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEven so, Oakwood School is also requiring that more writing is done in-class and it\u2019s evaluating various forms of technology that can be harnessed to limit and prevent AI use, including so-called browser lockdowns on computers. \u201cKids can still type, but they can\u2019t access other things on their computers,\u201d says Mu\u00f1oz. She adds that, \u201cwe utilize things like Google Docs \u2018Version History\u2019 checker to sort of keep an eye that kids are staying within their documents doing the work \u2026 because we\u2019re seeing that it\u2019s just so easy to default to using AI.\u201d But Oakwood is not currently using AI checkers to evaluate whether students use the technology in completing assignments. \u201cWe actually did a professional development for teachers in a recent meeting where we took an email that I used AI to help me write and we put it through three different AI checkers and they all came up with different responses. One said no AI was used, one said about 50 percent. They all said different things. So we actually use that as an example for our teachers to say, \u2018We can\u2019t actually trust AI against AI.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd if anything,\u201d she continues, \u201cit\u2019s just gonna build distrust with our students. That\u2019s not a direction we\u2019re choosing to go in because there\u2019s really no proof that those work. And if anything, it\u2019s just gonna build more distrust.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSchool leaders and students are also navigating a host of other concerns around AI from thinking about whether AI will increase or diminish career prospects in certain fields (like graphic design or video game design) to looking at the environmental impact of the technology, which is dramatically increasing energy usage across the globe.\u201d At a school like Oakwood, sustainability is really important to our students and our community,\u201d says Mu\u00f1oz. \u201cThey are thinking about the long-term effects of constant AI use on our planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor parents and tech entrepreneurs Adam Ayers and Victoria de la Fuente, who live in Los Angeles and have two young boys, the dawning of generative AI factors into their decision making around schooling. The couple (who founded social platform Doomscrollr) currently send their elder son to a Montessori school \u201cbecause they\u2019re really focusing on independence, on self-learning and teachable life skills,\u201d says de la Fuente, who is also the founder of Zillion Trillion, an education-focused Substack newsletter and podcast. More than ever, the couple want to avoid schools that put a focus on memorization, while favoring schools that lean into process-based learning. \u201cFrom what I can see in the schools I\u2019ve been visiting, they\u2019re still very much pushing the memorization route. It just feels like in the age of AI where they can just have vast access to all that information. It feels irrelevant,\u201d says de la Fuente.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s something that resonates with Mu\u00f1oz: \u201cFor us, it\u2019s about finding a balance of when can we insert AI appropriately without losing that human piece. It\u2019s really pushed us to work with teachers on how we can reevaluate the way we are teaching and maybe change some of our assessments a little bit to focus on more of the human elements that AI can\u2019t replicate. How do we really incentivize being human? That\u2019s a big part of our conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n