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

AI is already reshaping Missouri classrooms: south St. Louis's Gateway Science Academy is piloting MagicSchool tools to speed lesson planning and personalize instruction, while Hancock Place convened 165+ area educators to demo platforms like Snorkel, School AI and Brisk and discuss classroom use and policy (see local coverage from First Alert 4 and St. Louis Public Radio).

Federal and state guidance is pushing districts to balance opportunity with safeguards, and research from the St. Louis Fed shows generative AI adoption climbed faster than past tech waves - meaning routine tasks from grading to scheduling are prime targets for automation.

That shift can turn “a day or two” of grading into near-instant feedback, freeing educators to focus on relationships and higher‑order teaching. For Missouri educators and staff looking to adapt, practical upskilling matters; Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work teaches workplace AI tools, prompt writing and applied workflows in a 15‑week, hands‑on format to help make the transition tangible and career-ready.

“AI lets me tailor things more easily. It can help cut down on the time I spend doing that.” - Jessica Mayberry

Selection of the “Top 5” at‑risk roles followed a pragmatic, Missouri‑focused lens: prioritize routine, high‑volume tasks that local districts are already piloting or flagging for guidance, then cross‑check against policy and fiscal signals.

Roles scored higher when they matched tasks shown in Gateway Science Academy's MagicSchool pilot for lesson‑planning and burnout relief, or Rockwood's rollout of school‑safe AI and high‑school coursework on AI use and citation practices (evidence those tasks are ripe for tool support).

We also weighted professional uptake and educator demand, using learnings from the Hancock Place AI Educator Summit (roughly 160 attendees across 70 sessions) and U.S. guidance encouraging districts to adopt AI as indicators of likely adoption.

Finally, district finance pressures - highlighted in the SLPS audit warning of severe shortfalls by 2031 - increased the probability that administrative and back‑office roles would be targeted for efficiency tools.

These combined criteria - task automability, local pilots, training momentum, policy guardrails, and fiscal vulnerability - produced a defensible, Missouri‑specific ranking of at‑risk school roles.

Read more on the Gateway pilot, Missouri DESE guidelines, and the Hancock Place summit for the source data that informed our choices.

Lesson‑planning and curriculum‑assistant roles are already shifting in St. Louis classrooms as Gateway Science Academy pilots MagicSchool to help teachers generate differentiated lessons, quick assessments and project scaffolds while the school staggers a two‑year rollout that will open selected apps to students in year two; local pilots like this pair with national tools - for example PowerSchool's PowerBuddy Lesson Planner - that promise fast, standards‑aligned starting points for units and warm‑ups, cutting repetitive prep time so educators can focus on coaching and relationships instead of formatting.

That matters here in Missouri because national polling shows teachers who use AI estimate saving about six hours a week, a tangible buffer against burnout that Gateway's training plan (monthly supports and a digital resource hub) is designed to capture responsibly.

District leaders' repeated emphasis on careful training and ethical use mirrors Gateway's approach: teacher‑led professional learning, clear guardrails from instructional leaders, and an explicit stance that AI should augment - not replace - classroom judgment.

Read Gateway Science Academy St. Louis AI pilot coverage and explore the PowerSchool PowerBuddy lesson planner product page to see practical examples of how planning workflows are evolving in real schools.

“AI helped me think of options I didn't think of…AI lets me tailor things more easily. It can help cut down on the time I spend doing that.” - Jessica Mayberry

Automating grading is one of the clearest places Missouri districts can save teacher time and shore up strained staffing: open‑access research on “The Role of AI in Automating Grading” outlines how AI systems speed scoring and deliver rapid feedback, and vendor case studies like Learnosity's writeup on Feedback Aide show rubric‑based AI reaching high agreement with human raters (a reported QWK ≈ 0.88) and freeing teachers from “dining‑room table” piles of papers, a vivid reminder of why this matters for retention.

At the same time, national reporting and technical reviews flag real risks - algorithms can faithfully replicate human scores but also replicate or amplify bias, mishandle creative responses, or be gamed by nonsense text - so local rollout should follow the hybrid “human‑in‑the‑loop” models and transparency practices recommended by technical reviews and best‑practice guides.

For St. Louis and other Missouri districts balancing budgets and equity, that means piloting automated scoring for low‑stakes, high‑volume tasks, pairing AI scoring with human review, and vetting vendors for fairness and privacy before scaling.

Read the IntechOpen chapter on automated grading, Learnosity's Feedback Aide analysis, and reporting on algorithmic bias to weigh both the promise and the pitfalls.

“The problem is that bias is another kind of pattern, and so these machine learning systems are also going to pick it up.” - Emily M. Bender

Instructional aides and paraprofessionals - who handle routine supports like small‑group checks, progress tracking and clerical tasks - are squarely in the sights of school AI pilots in the St. Louis region because tools that speed feedback and personalize practice can absorb high‑volume, repeatable work; Rockwood's move to build an online high‑school AI course and train librarians and instructional‑technology staff signals a shift toward districtwide upskilling and clearer expectations for aides, while SLPS frames its approach around digital literacy and equitable, community‑driven implementation (see local coverage on Rockwood and SLPS at First Alert 4 coverage of Rockwood and SLPS).

At the same time, Missouri's DESE guidance stresses human oversight, transparent limits and teacher training before scaling these systems, a necessary check to ensure aides are repositioned into higher‑value roles rather than sidelined by automation - imagine the relief of a paraprofessional no longer buried under a stack of intervention notes because an AI tool triaged and summarized the work for review.

For districts planning change, pairing quick pilot wins with role redesign and training for paraprofessionals will make the difference between displacement and empowerment; read the KFVS summary of Missouri's responsible AI guidelines for schools for concrete expectations.

“It's truly all about how we can use AI to amplify and improve the educational experience, and not just make it something that makes it easier for students.” - Bob Deneau

Administrative staff who keep schedules, manage substitutes, and enter student data are prime targets for automation because those high‑volume, repeatable workflows - course registration, timetable updates, room reservations and routine HR tasks - are already being automated in schools (research on automation in education and processes that can be automated: Automation in Education: Processes That Can Be Automated); the payoff is real when principals are shouldering 58‑hour weeks with nearly 30% swallowed by paperwork and scheduling, and leaders want that time back for instruction and school culture (how principals are using AI to reduce paperwork, scheduling, and data analysis: How Principals Are Using AI to Reduce Administrative Burdens).

At the same time, Missouri districts and regional workforce initiatives should pair any efficiency push with staff reskilling, transparent vendor audits, and human‑in‑the‑loop safeguards - both to protect jobs and to limit legal exposure, since employment‑tool liability and fairness concerns are front‑and‑center in legal reviews of AI in hiring and HR systems (legal analysis of AI risks and employer liability in employment processes: Legal Risks and Employer Liability for AI in Employment Processes).

Practical pilots that automate low‑risk tasks while funding targeted retraining will keep schedules humming without leaving trained staff behind.

“What most people think about when it comes to AI adoption in the schools is academic integrity.” - Amanda Bickerstaff

Library and media specialists in St. Louis districts are uniquely positioned to turn AI from a threat into an instructional asset: vendors and local pilots show chatbots and semantic search streamlining routine questions and cataloging so librarians can spend more time teaching citation practices, digital literacy and critical evaluation of AI outputs, not just shelving books; Follett's overview of AI in school libraries highlights inventory automation, smart discovery and recommendation features that free staff for curriculum collaboration, while ACRL's Tips & Trends on AI for academic librarians maps concrete ways librarians can translate search and prompt‑writing skills into AI literacy lessons for students and faculty.

The payoff for Missouri schools is practical - imagine a chatbot handling “what time is the library open?” while the librarian models source evaluation for a crowded research workshop - turning reclaimed minutes into higher‑impact instruction.

Districts such as Rockwood and others should pair tool pilots with clear guidance on citation, privacy and hands‑on librarian training so AI strengthens, rather than sidesteps, library leadership in research support; see Follett's school‑library playbook and ACRL's librarian resources for implementation steps.

“If people want to know what time the library is open, a chatbot can easily answer that, which would then free me up to answer the longer questions.” - Kira Smith

Missouri districts ready to move from pilots to practical scale should follow a three‑part plan: adopt clear guardrails and human‑in‑the‑loop safeguards using the Missouri DESE AI guidance as a baseline, empower boards and leaders with the MSBA AI Toolkit for policy questions and vendor vetting, and invest in focused upskilling so staff can shift into higher‑value work rather than be sidelined - practical steps include piloting AI on low‑risk, high‑volume tasks (scheduling, routine scoring, intake triage), pairing automated outputs with human review, and funding retraining pathways tied to measurable outcomes.

Local gatherings like the Hancock Place summit showed how district collaboration accelerates safe adoption; districts should also map staffing vulnerabilities, prioritize paraprofessional and administrative reskilling, and require vendor transparency on bias and privacy.

For educators and staff seeking hands‑on, workplace‑focused training, Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp syllabus describes a 15‑week, applied program that teaches tool use, prompt writing, and job‑based AI skills to make these transitions tangible and career‑ready.

“Integrating AI into the classroom is about empowering educators and students. AI has the potential to personalize learning, streamline routine tasks, and give teachers more time to focus on what matters most: building relationships and inspiring growth…”