Top 5 Jobs in Education That Are Most at Risk from AI in Des Moines - And How to Adapt

Des Moines educators should pay attention because national adoption and policy activity are accelerating: Ballotpedia tracks that state departments had issued AI guidance in 27 states as of August 2025, and districts nationwide are rushing to draft local AI policies as classrooms adopt generative tools - trends that reshape assessments, lesson planning, and vendor procurement for instructional materials (State K‑12 AI guidance - Ballotpedia).

Classroom AI can save time - some studies show weekly AI use cutting teacher workload by nearly six hours - while also raising privacy, bias, and assessment integrity questions; practical pilots should therefore pair limited deployments with clear rules and literacy training.

For concrete use cases and realistic cost benchmarks for pilots and scale-ups, see the APPWRK compendium on AI in education (AI in Education: Use Cases and Cost Benchmarks - APPWRK).

For upskilling school staff, a focused program like Register for Nucamp's 15‑week AI Essentials for Work bootcamp teaches prompt‑writing and tool workflows teachers can apply immediately.

“In the classroom, AI should be used to empower educators, not to ...”

The methodology combined local training capacity, employer signals, and enrollment evidence to pinpoint the five Des Moines education roles most exposed to automation: inventorying Des Moines Area Community College's new offerings and partnerships (DMACC's Artificial Intelligence AAS and planned certificate) to map available upskilling pathways (DMACC Artificial Intelligence AAS and certificate program); assessing employer and curriculum inputs from DMACC's Intel AI for Workforce partnership - including the program's access to more than 700 hours of AI content and college‑level teacher training - to estimate which tasks schools will automate first (Des Moines Register coverage of the DMACC and Intel AI for Workforce partnership); and validating demand with enrollment signals (the initial non‑credit AI class filled quickly with 22 students), then cross‑referencing practical classroom use cases and ethical guardrails from local bootcamp resources to prioritize roles where task automation is both feasible and replaceable versus roles suited to augmentation.

This produced a short list focused on high‑volume, routine administrative and grading tasks plus entry‑level instructional roles where reskilling pathways already exist.

“It fits in every area of curriculum… every subject matter, whether it's technical or arts and sciences, can benefit from the AI process,”

Instructional aides and paraprofessionals face high exposure because many of their day-to-day duties - basic tutoring, running drill practice, taking observation notes, and initial scoring of objective work - are exactly the tasks AI is automating in classrooms today; AI can generate differentiated practice, automate notes, and speed grading, and districts report tools that save teachers as much as six hours a week (The 74 Million report on AI teacher assistants risk assessment).

That combination creates both disruption and an opportunity: avoid replacement by upskilling aides to supervise AI-driven tutors, validate outputs for accuracy and bias, and run small-group interventions while keeping the human “in the loop” for FERPA‑sensitive decisions and IEP work (training gaps are large - many educators report no formal AI training - so structured PD is essential) (Third Space Learning overview of AI in education; RESA educator AI learning pathways).

A concrete next step for Des Moines districts: pilot a paraprofessional micro‑credential in prompt design + formative‑assessment QA so the weekly hours AI frees are redirected to higher‑value supports - monitoring interventions, family communication, and differentiated small‑group instruction - rather than eliminated.

“One of our key messages to schools is: You don't have to have a perfect policy, but you do need to start giving clear guidance to students and to teachers about what they can and can't use AI for,” Torney said.

High‑school computer science instructors who are hired as entry‑level or adjunct staff in the Des Moines area face a twofold shift: AI coding tools and automated screening are compressing demand for routine introductory lab supervision, while districts are beginning to adopt AI career‑technical education tracks that prize curriculum design, AI literacy, and assessment oversight; national reporting warns that “those positions that are most likely to be automated are the entry‑level positions” and recent grads are already seeing hiring challenges (New York Times: Computing Graduates Can't Find Work (Aug 2025)).

Practical transition paths include short, focused PD in AI pedagogy (prompt design, model evaluation, and bias/FERPA risk mitigation), teaming with nonprofits and industry to bring CTE modules into existing CS classes, and shifting toward project‑based, assessable AI literacy lessons that prepare students to critique and collaborate with tools rather than only write code from scratch (Georgetown CSET: Riding the AI Wave - K‑12 AI Education).

Local instructors can also reuse AI‑designed mastery units and ethical‑AI templates to scale quality lessons quickly and keep instructional hours billable to the district rather than lost to automation (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus - AI‑designed mastery‑based units).

The bottom line: entry‑level CS teachers who learn to evaluate AI outputs and design AI‑centered learning experiences will be more resilient - and more likely to be hired to lead new CTE pathways - than those who only supervise routine coding drills.

“I'm very concerned... Computer science students who graduated three or four years ago would have been fighting off offers from top firms - and now that same student would be struggling to get a job from anyone.”

Grading and assessment specialists and testing coordinators are especially exposed as districts adopt automated scoring, item generation, and analytics that accelerate routine rubric‑based work; the practical pivot is from scorer to steward - someone who designs assessments, validates AI outputs against local standards, and enforces ethical and privacy guardrails.

In Des Moines that means learning prompt and model‑output QA, mapping AI‑generated items into six‑week mastery sequences tied to district standards (reusable AI‑designed mastery units can speed that work), and building regular human‑review workflows to catch bias or FERPA‑sensitive errors; district leaders can support this by pairing role‑based microcredentials with clear policies for tool use.

For actionable resources, see Nucamp's examples of AI‑designed mastery‑based units in the Nucamp AI Essentials syllabus (Nucamp AI Essentials syllabus: AI‑designed mastery‑based units), Nucamp guidance on ethical AI practices for schools (Nucamp AI Essentials registration and ethical AI guidance for schools), and the city‑focused overview of how AI is reshaping Des Moines classrooms to inform pilot design and job redesign (Nucamp AI Essentials syllabus: how AI is reshaping classrooms).

School administrative staff in Des Moines - those who manage scheduling, enrollment, and family communications - are on the front line of RPA-driven change because routine, rule‑based work is the easiest to automate: bots can process enrollment checklists, manage waitlists, send reminders for missing documents, and run automated scheduling that resolves conflicts and books appointments (RPA use cases in education - AIMultiple).

The practical implication is stark: a government education office using RPA cut email triage from 2.5 days to 4 minutes, freeing time but also reducing hours for staff doing that work (Department for Education RPA case study - UiPath).

For Des Moines districts, the resilient path is reskilling - train schedulers and registrars to design and manage automation rules, perform model‑output QA for FERPA and equity risks, and own communications templates - so efficiency gains translate into higher‑touch family outreach and compliance work rather than layoffs; local guidance and ethical playbooks can be paired with microcredentials and vendor pilots to keep those roles viable (AI Essentials for Work bootcamp syllabus - Nucamp).

“We embarked on our wider automation project about three years ago and have made great progress.”

Community college adjunct instructors who currently deliver short-term, employer-focused courses in central Iowa should pivot from moment-to-moment instruction to designing and owning workforce credentials that local employers will hire against: DMACC's extensive adjunct listings - ranging from Nurse Aide and Welding to a customized 15‑week IET ELL workplace literacy course taught at Vermeer in Pella - show that many assignments are already employer‑aligned and thus ripe for redesign (DMACC adjunct job postings and employer-aligned assignments); the practical move is to sell skills mapping, assessment blueprints, and business‑education partnerships, not just hourly delivery.

DMACC's Workforce Training Academy offers a clear pathway and accountability: short certificates with a district‑wide tuition assistance model and performance outcomes - 88% certificate completion and 77% new employment - so adjuncts who learn curriculum design, industry credentialing, and employer liaison work can increase student placement and protect billable hours (DMACC Workforce Training Academy certificate programs and outcomes).

Tap DMACC's educator programs and teacher‑externship opportunities to practice co‑design with employers, convert a 15‑week course into stacked microcredentials, and ensure the next role is course architect and industry integrator rather than a single‑class deliverer (DMACC work-based learning educator resources and teacher externships); the payoff is concrete: design one employer‑aligned certificate and many cohorts can be taught by rotating adjuncts while the designer retains curriculum oversight and higher pay.

Des Moines districts should convert concern into a coordinated action plan now: partner with DMACC - whose new Artificial Intelligence AAS and certificate track launch this fall and whose Intel partnership seeded a workforce‑ready curriculum - to create stacked, role‑based pathways (short DMACC non‑credit AI courses and work‑based learning partnerships) that move paraprofessionals, graders, admins, and adjuncts from routine task‑performers to AI‑literate stewards and designers (DMACC Artificial Intelligence AAS and Certificate Program); send instructional leaders to focused PD such as Solution Tree One-Day AI for Educators Workshop in Des Moines to build team norms and human‑review workflows; and enroll frontline staff in practical, job‑focused training like Nucamp 15-Week AI Essentials for Work Bootcamp so prompt‑writing and model QA become district competencies rather than ad‑hoc skills.

The payoff is concrete: automation can free hours but only targeted reskilling - paired with district policies, teacher externships, and employer co‑design - turns those hours into higher‑value intervention, family outreach, and credentialed roles that local employers recognize.