Virginia Department of Education (established under Code of Virginia Section 22.1-20.2:1) 🌍 IntlDiscovered
Virginia AIS Innovation in Education Pilot Program for School Division Grants Piloting AI Instruction, Tutoring, Student Engagement and Teacher Support Virginia has established the AIS Innovation in Education Pilot Program in statute at Code of Virginia Section 22.1-20.2:1, directing the Department of Education to fund, evaluate and scale safe and innovative uses of artificial intelligence systems in public elementary and secondary schools. The programme supports school divisions piloting AI applications across five named uses: instruction, tutoring, student engagement, operational efficiency and teacher support. Two statutory requirements give the programme more analytical weight than a typical technology pilot fund. Every selected division must include professional development for educators on AI literacy and responsible use, and every division must develop and submit an evaluation plan measuring the impact of AI use on student learning, teacher workload and equity outcomes. The explicit inclusion of teacher workload as a measured outcome is notable, since it treats staff time as a primary rather than incidental effect of classroom AI. The Department is directed to prioritise proposals from divisions serving diverse student populations, including high-poverty, rural and under-resourced divisions. The programme is supported by 2,000,000 dollars in the FY2027 to FY2028 budget and expires 1 July 2030, giving it a defined four-cycle life. School divisions or consortia apply competitively by 1 August each year, with annual reports required to legislative committees.
The programme is supported by 2,000,000 US dollars in the Virginia FY2027 to FY2028 biennial budget. The enabling statute at Code of Virginia Section 22.1-20.2:1 establishes the programme but states no per-award amount, floor or ceiling, so amount_min and amount_max are both recorded as 2,000,000, which is the appropriation rather than an individual grant size. This is the single most important caveat on this record: an applying school division should not budget 2,000,000 dollars. The actual award size will be set by the Department of Education in its grant guidance and will depend on how many divisions are funded, and comparable state AI-in-education pilots have made awards in the tens of thousands of dollars, with New Jersey's Artificial Intelligence Innovation in Education Grant awarding up to 75,000 dollars across roughly ten recipients from 750,000 dollars. If Virginia follows a similar pattern, awards from a 2,000,000 dollar biennial appropriation could fall anywhere from roughly 50,000 to 200,000 dollars depending on cohort size, but this is inference rather than published guidance. Divisions should also note the appropriation is biennial, so it covers two application rounds rather than one, and that the statute permits consortium applications, which is the route to a larger effective budget for a small or rural division. Deadline: Aug 1, 2027