Updated October 23, 2026, 9:27 a.m. ET
When Nikki Anderson, 32, opened her 6-year-old’s Friday file on Oct. 16, she was excited to see what her daughter, Harper, had been working on at school that week.
The folder contained spelling tests and illustrations from Harper’s first grade class. But among the construction paper and lined sheets on which her daughter wrote what she wanted to be when she grew up — a nurse — was a particular photo that stopped Anderson in her tracks.
The image, generated by artificial intelligence, showed what her daughter would look like at 25. The image was of a young woman with a “baby face,” Anderson said, with straight, wavy hair, wearing a nurse’s uniform and holding a clipboard. Anderson’s daughter proudly told her mother how her special teacher took the AI photo. She especially loved the wavy hair she would have when she grew up, Harper said.
Another picture of her daughter as a nurse — one that her daughter came up with with her own imagination and made with her own hands with construction paper and pencil-drawn eyes, nose and mouth — did not feature wavy hair.
“My child’s interpretation of the world has been replaced by an algorithm’s interpretation of what a successful adult woman should look like,” Anderson, of Charleston, South Carolina, wrote in an Instagram post about the AI image, which has more than 600,000 likes. “She had already imagined the future. She did something incredible to represent it. How much of that had to be done by a computer?”
AI is infiltrating everyday life, and the classroom is no exception. Many teachers are adapting to the use of AI, urged by some education leaders not to get left behind. Even in places banning the use of AI in some classrooms — like New York, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani made it mandatory in September for students in kindergarten through eighth grade — teachers are pushing back, saying students must learn to use AI safely and intelligently. But is the use of AI in schools hindering children’s creativity? And shouldn’t parents have to give permission before their children’s images are uploaded to AI platforms? These are the questions Anderson and thousands of other parents are asking in the wake of the AI boom.
There is a lack of legislation and guidelines regarding the use of AI in schools and what teachers should or should not put into AI models, said Tina Mulqueen, a professor at Washington State University in Vancouver and senior vice president of digital transformation at Burson, a communications company.
“I don’t want to put that on the teacher,” she said. “I have so much respect for teachers. It’s a really difficult job and I think most of them are really well-intentioned in how they’re trying to handle this with AI.”
Teachers should not insert personally identifiable information about students into AI models, Mulqueen said. But if AI is going to be useful and expected in the job market, she said, “then we probably want to teach our children to be able to interact.”
“But we don’t want to take learning away from them,” she said.
Conversations around AI in classrooms typically center around mastering AI and how to use it to improve learning, said Jason Yeh, co-founder of Patron, an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in the next generation of consumer technologies. One of its investments is in a company specializing in personalized education using AI. But Anderson’s situation doesn’t seem related to any of those goals, he said. Because parents are increasingly wary of AI, Yeh said more schools are becoming cautious about its use.
“Schools need to figure out how best to integrate relevant technology to help people learn better,” Yeh said.
Parents are on alert right now
Anderson told USA TODAY that she signed a consent form at the start of the school year authorizing the school to use Harper’s photos and artwork in the media; he didn’t say anything about AI.
“The Charleston County School District recognizes both the opportunities and responsibilities that arise from the use of artificial intelligence in education, particularly when it involves student images and personal information,” the Harper School District said in an emailed statement to USA TODAY, adding that the district has established policies and guidance regarding the responsible use of the technology and has partnered with AI for Education, a national consulting organization, beginning in 2025 to develop a AI framework. “Once the concerns were brought to the school’s attention, the principal ordered that similar assignments be discontinued, and the district followed its established procedures to resolve the issue.”
The district is preparing to launch comprehensive district-wide AI introductory training for educators in the coming weeks to reinforce expectations for student privacy, approved AI tools, ethical use and appropriate teaching practices, the district said.
Anderson said she was “pretty against AI” when it came to child development and was concerned about privacy issues. She has heard about the increase in child sexual abuse material being made available through AI and said that “all parents are kind of on high alert right now because we’re trying to protect our children’s imaginations and privacy.”
Yeh sometimes uses AI with her children at home, with parental supervision, and sees many ways AI can be useful in educational situations. He, too, said he would be concerned if one of his elementary-aged children came home with an image similar to the one created by Harper’s teacher.
“It’s hard to imagine how this relates to something they would learn,” he said.
Anderson said she didn’t think Harper’s teacher did anything malicious and that the idea of the assignment was sweet in some ways. She’s also aware that teachers “are overworked, underpaid, absolutely struggling to do the best they can with kids, and I absolutely want them to have access to materials that make them feel like they can manage their schedule better,” including AI tools.
But she doesn’t want her daughter to interact with AI when she’s 6 years old. She said she found it difficult to have that conversation with her daughter when this happened. “I want her to think that science and progress are fascinating and necessary and useful,” she said. For now, though, Anderson is focusing on the art that Harper makes herself.
“I promise you, what your hair will look like at 25 will be the least important thing about you,” she told her daughter.
Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the care economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Contact Madeline at memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ on X.
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