Why We Use AI to Help us Build our BOE in a Minute Newsletters for the Madison, NJ School District

Why We Use AI for Our Newsletter

Creating a summary of Board of Education meetings is time-consuming and often involves sifting through hours of complex discussions. To address this challenge and ensure our community stays informed, we use artificial intelligence (AI) as a strategic tool.

The Problem: Time and Complexity

Board meetings are long and full of technical jargon. For a parent or volunteer, manually summarizing a meeting involves:

• Significant Time: Reading dozens of pages of transcripts or listening to hours of audio.

• Information Overload: It's easy to miss key details or get lost in the complexity.

• Jargon Barrier: Translating official terms into plain language takes time and effort.

The AI Solution

AI is not a replacement for human judgment; it's a powerful assistant that makes the process faster and more effective. We use it to:

• Save Time: AI can process hours of meeting audio and text in minutes, instantly identifying main topics and key decisions. This frees up our time to focus on editing and refining the content.

• Simplify Information: We can prompt the AI to explain complex topics in simple, easy-to-understand language for our audience.

• Ensure Consistency: AI helps us create a standardized, repeatable process for every meeting, ensuring each newsletter has a consistent format and quality.

• Promote Objectivity: When properly guided, AI summarizes facts directly from the source material, which helps reduce unintentional bias.

The Human Role: The Most Important Part

AI is a tool, but it's not perfect. Our human oversight is crucial. Every newsletter is carefully reviewed and edited to:

• Fact-check for accuracy.

• Add context and nuance that the AI might miss.

• Ensure the tone is neutral and informative.

By using AI, we can efficiently provide our community with timely, accurate, and accessible information about our Board of Education's work.