Columbus County Schools will spend $29,950.61 to bring an artificial intelligence platform called Magic School to every middle and high school classroom in the district starting this fall. The decision follows a sharp increase in AI use among students and teachers after the previous school year ended-a trend district leaders saw and chose to steer rather than suppress.
Magic School functions as what the district calls a "thought partner." Instead of delivering quick answers, the platform walks students through the thinking steps behind tasks like brainstorming and writing. The system is built on the district's curriculum documents and learning framework, which lets administrators control and shape chatbot interactions to align with state standards.
"We limit and control those chatbots; we can create them using our learning framework, our curriculum documents, and really kind of shape the experience so we are pointing the users in the direction that we would like them to go," said Laura Hunter, chief academic officer for Columbus County Schools.
How the platform restricts student access
The district has blocked student access to other AI platforms while on school networks. Magic School becomes the only permitted AI tool, and its chatbots operate within boundaries set by the district's own learning objectives. The goal is to prevent students from treating AI as a shortcut-a behavior teachers observed during the previous school year.
"AI is here to stay. We couldn't keep our heads in the sand. We knew that it was our job to teach our students how to responsibly use AI and critically evaluate what AI generates so they can be active adults in the AI landscape," Hunter said.
Teacher access and lesson planning
The platform also opens up for teachers, who can use it to support lesson planning. Hunter said the district wanted to lean into AI's potential to make teachers more effective and efficient while saving them time. The rollout will happen slowly, with an emphasis on training and safe use. This approach mirrors a growing interest in AI for Education as districts across the country weigh how to integrate artificial intelligence without losing instructional control.
For educators looking to build their own skills with these tools, an AI Learning Path for Teachers can provide structured guidance on classroom applications, from lesson design to student engagement strategies.
A deliberate pace for a permanent shift
Hunter framed the move as part of a larger pattern of technological change that schools cannot afford to ignore. She pointed to her 25 years in education as evidence that resisting new tools leaves students unprepared for the world they will enter.
"If I have learned anything in the past 25 years, it's that we cannot ignore advances in technology and pretend that they are not happening. Because all of those technological advances have shaped the world that we live in and definitely have shaped our students' experiences," Hunter said.
Why this matters for education professionals
Columbus County Schools is putting a concrete price tag-just under $30,000 for the year-on a controlled, curriculum-aligned AI environment. For administrators and teachers in other districts, that figure offers a benchmark for what a district-wide, walled-garden AI deployment costs. More importantly, the district's approach treats AI literacy as a skill students must practice under supervision, not a tool to ban or ignore. That framing-AI as a taught competency rather than a threat-will shape budget conversations, professional development plans, and classroom policies in the years ahead.
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