AI Integration Should Start With Your Mission, Not the Technology

Your school already knows what matters. Let that wisdom guide your AI approach

The pathway to meaningful AI integration starts with the values you already carry. Let them light the way forward. Image made with Gamma.app

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By Mica T. Mulloy, M.Ed

I recently published a blog post for the Jesuit Schools Network about how our school grounds its AI approach in our school’s mission. While the article is specific to Jesuit education, it reflects a principle that matters for every school navigating AI integration.

Your school’s AI policy should be rooted in your school’s mission and core values. If it’s not, you’re implementing technology for technology’s sake—and that’s a misguided recipe that serves neither students nor teachers.

Read the full Jesuit Schools Network article here: AI, Jesuit Education, and the Frontiers of Learning

Why Mission Matters

Here’s an uncomfortable reality: AI is not neutral. These tools are built by companies and people with particular worldviews, trained on data that reflects historical biases, and are designed to serve the interests of the companies that create them. Given these realities, teachers and students need a guiding light to navigate AI tools and ensure every decision reflects what education is truly for.

Too many schools approach AI reactively, either banning it out of fear or embracing it without direction. Both approaches miss the point. The question should not be: “Should we use AI?” The question should be: “How does AI align with who we are and who we want our students to become?”

At our school, we organized our AI approach around four pillars drawn from Ignatian pedagogy: walking with students, democratizing resources, fostering authentic encounter, and centering ethics and transparency. Each of these are detailed in the JSN post. These pillars work for us because they emerge from our mission. It is how we approach all facets of education.

Your pillars will be different, and that’s the point. If your school values equity and access, your AI policy might prioritize how these tools can level the playing field for students who lack traditional resources.

If your school emphasizes creativity and critical thinking, your framework might focus on how AI can be a thought partner rather than a shortcut.

If your school prioritizes community and relationships, your approach might spotlight the ways AI can create more time for meaningful human connection—and the ways it threatens to erode it. Or your approach might include all of these things.

The Questions to Ask

Before you write another AI policy or subscribe to another tool, ask:

• What does our school, district or network stand for?

• What kind of students do we want to send into the world?

• How might AI support those goals? How might it undermine them?

• Who should have a voice in shaping our approach? I’ll note that if students do not have a large voice in your approach, you should re-evaluate that first.

These aren’t technology questions. They’re identity questions. And they require the kind of deep reflection that educators—not tech companies—are best equipped to lead.

Technology for Technology’s Sake

Without mission-centered grounding, AI integration becomes what we see too often: schools chasing the newest promising tool, teachers overwhelmed, and students navigating unclear or contradictory messages about what’s allowed and why.

That might look innovative on a website, but it doesn’t serve learning. It doesn’t honor the complexity of education. And it doesn’t respect the wisdom that schools and teachers already carry about what matters most.

So look toward your mission and your guiding principles, and then move forward from there.

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What are your school’s core values? How do they inform your approach to AI? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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Follow us on Bluesky at @MindfulAIEdu or on Instagram at @MindfulAIEdu

Who we are:
Dr. Dani Kachorsky, Ph.D.
Mica Mulloy, M.Ed
Jake Kelly, M.A

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AI Transparency Statement: This post was written in collaboration with Claude, which helped with initial drafting and revisions based on my own ideas and feedback.