The Complete Guide to Using AI in the Education Industry in Orem in 2025

Orem is uniquely positioned in 2025 to ride Utah's statewide momentum on AI in schools: the state hired a full‑time AI specialist, leverages the Utah Education Network's high‑speed, filtered internet and vetted tool marketplace, and is actively training teachers so “about 20% of educators” complete AI instruction by summer - a coordinated approach that makes classroom pilots in Orem easier to scale and evaluate (Utah statewide AI strategy for K-12 education).

Classroom practices - creating quizzes, drafting parent emails, and differentiating instruction - are already saving teachers time (How teachers are using AI to save time in the classroom), while local higher‑ed guidance on syllabus language, privacy, and in‑class AI activities helps districts convert policy into practice (University of Utah guidance on AI tools for teaching).

For Orem educators and staff seeking practical upskilling, the AI Essentials for Work bootcamp offers a 15‑week practical program to build workplace AI skills and prompt mastery - a concrete pathway from policy to classroom impact.

“One of the most coherent statewide level strategies and approaches is Utah,” - Chris Agnew, Generative AI for Education Hub at Stanford University.

In 2025 the role of AI in classrooms is shifting from experimental pilot to everyday instructional partner: states and national observers call this a transformative year as educators make AI literacy a core competency and begin weaving tools into regular lessons (see the sector overview at UBTech AI in the Classroom 2025 sector overview), while Utah's statewide coordination - an AI specialist, UEN's vetted tool marketplace, and university guidance - lets districts adopt proven practices and safeguards faster (KUER: Utah's approach to AI in K-12 education 2025).

In classrooms that are already testing these shifts, AI tutors and teaching assistants provide instant feedback, personalized learning paths help meet diverse needs (including students with disabilities and English learners), and routine tasks - drafting parent emails or generating quizzes - move from hours to a few guided clicks, freeing teachers to focus on richer, human‑centered instruction; university resources add practical syllabus language and data‑security tips so adoption stays responsible and classroom‑ready (University of Utah AI research and teaching guidelines 2025).

“We want to get ahead of everything that's going to come down the pipeline, because there's a lot of things coming with AI that is driven by industry, and we've got to not be reactionary, but prepared,” - Matthew Winters, Utah State Board of Education AI specialist.

Federal regulation in 2025 is tilting decisively toward enabling responsible AI in schools - a trend Orem districts should watch closely because federal dollars and priorities now explicitly support classroom AI and educator training.

The White House Executive Order (April 23, 2025) created a national Task Force and a push for AI literacy that directs agencies to build K‑12 resources and teacher professional development, while the U.S. Department of Education's July 22, 2025 Dear Colleague Letter affirms that existing formula and discretionary grant funds may be used for AI‑based instructional materials, tutoring, and tools so long as uses meet statutory and privacy requirements and center educator oversight (see the Department's guidance).

At the same time, the Department published a proposed supplemental priority in the Federal Register (July 21, 2025) that would steer future discretionary grants toward AI literacy, teacher PD, and AI‑enabled tutoring - and the rulemaking process is active (the public comment period closed Aug.

20, 2025, with 158 comments on record). Practically, that means Utah's statewide coordination and district pilots can be positioned to tap federal funding streams, provided local policies address privacy, human oversight, and evidence‑based use; the Department's AI inventory also shows federal offices already running AI pilots (from chatbots to analytics), signaling both opportunity and a rapid policy runway for districts to follow.

“Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize education and support improved outcomes for learners,” - U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.

Orem districts operate where two rule sets meet: public procurement law and strict data‑security practice, so buying AI tools is as much a legal process as a technical one - school districts and charter schools are explicitly subject to the Utah Procurement Code, which says

“may not make a purchase or incur indebtedness on behalf of the district without the approval and order of the local school board,”

and encourages clear thresholds for quotes, sole‑source purchases, and use of State Cooperative Contracts to speed vetted buys Utah Procurement Code overview and procurement checklist.

At the same time, university‑level guidance such as the University of Utah's Rule 4‑004C on Data Classification and Encryption illustrates concrete protections Orem schools should mirror: assign Data Stewards, classify data as Restricted/Sensitive/Public, treat PII and FERPA records with the most restrictive controls, encrypt data at rest where feasible, encrypt data in motion when leaving the network, and avoid storing Restricted Data with a cloud provider without contractual safeguards (University of Utah Rule 4‑004C: Data Classification & Encryption policy).

For districts budgeting AI pilots, pairing procurement checklists with FERPA‑aware deployment practices - for example, requiring vendor contracts that reflect encryption, access limits, and data‑steward responsibilities - turns compliance from an obstacle into a classroom safeguard (FERPA-compliant AI deployment strategies for school districts).

Practical teacher guidance for Orem classrooms begins with small, concrete steps: complete the state's short PD and the optional Canvas course so lesson design aligns with Utah's AI framework, then update syllabi to state when AI is allowed, how to cite it, and consequences for misuse (see Utah Tech Generative AI teaching guidelines Utah Tech Generative AI teaching guidelines).

Leverage ready-made, classroom‑tested materials - everything from equitable lesson‑planning guides to hands‑on AI projects and text‑to‑image prompts - available through UEN's educator group (browse the UEN K‑12 AI resource bank at UEN K‑12 AI resource bank for classroom AI resources) so teachers don't start from scratch.

Design assessments that require students to fact‑check AI outputs, include in‑class demonstrations or oral defenses, and scaffold prompt‑engineering activities so students learn both to use and to critique tools; these approaches align with state guidance that centers human oversight and equity.

Prioritize data privacy by using district DPAs and statewide licensing where available, and remember the classroom win: a special‑education teacher in Utah created multiple chatbots tailored to nonverbal students, turning AI into an inclusive communication ally rather than a shortcut - an example that shows how careful design can convert productivity gains into deeper learning.

“PD should be ongoing and recursive.”

Orem educators looking to deepen practical, classroom-ready AI skills should watch the international conversations coming out of AIED 2025 and its XAI-Ed workshop - AIED's July 22–26 conference centers on “AI as a Catalyst for Inclusive, Personalised, and Ethical Education,” offering tracks from “Teaching AI” to “Ethics, Equity, and AIED in Society” that directly map to district priorities, and it even makes scholarships available for presenters with limited funding (AIED 2025 conference tracks and call for papers).

The XAI-Ed session (a focused workshop on July 22) zeroes in on explainable, pedagogy‑founded AI - practical tools and research that help turn black‑box alerts into meaningful classroom explanations so teachers can say not just “a student's score dropped,” but why an algorithm flagged that change and how to respond (XAI-Ed workshop on explainable AI in education).

Pair those insights with inclusive AI‑literacy approaches - accessibility audits, peer mentoring, scaffolded PD, and multilingual supports - from recent higher‑ed models, and Orem districts can design PD and pilots that prioritize equity, transparency, and classroom utility; imagine a teacher returning with a co‑designed, screen‑reader‑friendly prompt set and a peer‑mentoring plan that lets every student use AI ethically and effectively (Inclusive AI literacy practical frameworks for educators).

A practical one‑year roadmap for Orem teachers blends short, state‑aligned PD with iterative, privacy‑first pilots: start months 1–3 by completing UEN's professional development offerings and updating syllabi with University of Utah‑style policy language and course tools (UEN professional development catalog for Utah teachers: UEN professional development catalog for Utah teachers, University of Utah AI research and teaching guidelines (2025): University of Utah AI research and teaching guidelines (2025), FERPA‑compliant AI deployment strategies for K–12 classrooms: FERPA‑compliant AI deployment strategies for K–12 classrooms).

Months 4–6 launch a tightly scoped classroom pilot using FERPA‑aware vendor contracts and encryption practices informed by local deployment guidance so student data stays protected.

Months 7–9 focus on peer mentoring and accessibility audits - exchange prompt sets and co‑design screen‑reader‑friendly templates so a nonverbal student can “speak” through classroom AI - while tapping University of Utah forums and biweekly office hours to iterate on tools; months 10–12 scale what works, redesign assessments using Bloom's taxonomy to center critical thinking, and document outcomes for district procurement or grant applications.

The rhythm is simple: learn locally, pilot small and private, iterate with community support, then scale - so teachers move from curiosity to classroom confidence within a year.

Concrete pilots and published results make a strong case for Orem districts to try small, privacy‑first AI experiments: university projects like the University of Utah's UBot (a 24/7 Socratic study partner), UGuide, and the TEF‑Talk dashboard show how campus pilots can turn qualitative student feedback into actionable classroom insights (University of Utah AI tools for education (UBot, UGuide, TEF‑Talk)), while industry and vendor studies report measurable gains - Knewton's adaptive platform has been associated with a 62% improvement in test scores in pilot settings, and an Ivy Tech pilot used early AI‑driven risk detection to help 3,000 students avoid failure with 98% of contacted learners earning a C or better (Integranxt report on AI innovations in educational assessments).

For K–12 classrooms the payoff can look like a teacher who spends less time grading and more time coaching, with a virtual tutor ready at 2 a.m. to nudge a struggling student through a tricky problem; pairing those tools with the University of Utah's data safeguards and syllabus practices keeps pilots both effective and FERPA‑aware (Khanmigo tutoring use case and FERPA‑aware practices).

“Ideally, teachers should embody the role of lifelong learners in their study, work, and life,” - Jason Wang.

Common challenges for Orem districts are familiar to any Utah LEA trying to move from cautious pilots to dependable practice: aligning procurement and vendor contracts with statewide DPAs and privacy expectations, turning short-term teacher curiosity into recursive professional development, and keeping humans - not opaque, agentive systems - at the center of classroom decision‑making.

Utah's statewide playbook helps: the State Board's hire of a full‑time AI specialist and the Utah Education Network's vetting of free and paid tools reduce vendor risk and create buying leverage, but districts still need clear local governance - an AI oversight committee, standard pre‑use DPAs, and a procurement checklist that references state‑vetted options - to ensure consistency and speed.

Start small: use state‑approved tools and the Utah AI framework to run tightly scoped, FERPA‑aware pilots, collect usable data on outcomes, then scale what works; invest in layered PD so initial one‑hour trainings become ongoing coaching and peer mentoring (the state aimed to train about 20% of teachers by summer).

Finally, treat policies as living documents that explicitly prohibit autonomous, agentive AI from making high‑stakes decisions while requiring human review and transparency, because the real risk isn't that a tool will fail once - it's that unchecked automation quietly reshapes instruction without teacher oversight.

For practical guidance, see the KUER report on Utah's statewide AI approach in K‑12 (2025) (KUER report on Utah statewide AI approach) and the Utah Artificial Intelligence Framework for P‑12 Education (PDF) (Utah Artificial Intelligence Framework for P‑12 Education (PDF)).

“We want to get ahead of everything that's going to come down the pipeline, because there's a lot of things coming with AI that is driven by industry, and we've got to not be reactionary, but prepared,” - Matthew Winters.

Orem's path forward is clear: pair Utah's state‑level momentum and industry partnerships with practical, privacy‑first classroom steps so teachers can move from curiosity to confident practice - use University of Utah resources on syllabus language, data safeguards, and tools like UBot (a 24/7, late‑night Socratic study partner) to design pilots that protect student data and sharpen learning outcomes (University of Utah AI tools for teaching and instructor resources); lean on public‑private efforts such as the NVIDIA–Utah training initiative to expand educator skills and GPU‑accelerated labs for hands‑on work (NVIDIA and Utah partnership to advance AI education); and for staff or teachers wanting a structured, career‑ready option, consider a focused pathway like Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work bootcamp to build prompt literacy and workplace AI fluency in 15 weeks (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work registration).

Start small, document outcomes, iterate with peers, and center human oversight - so the next chapter of AI in Orem's classrooms is both innovative and responsibly managed.

“AI will continue to grow in importance, affecting every sector of Utah's economy,” - Spencer Cox, Governor of Utah.