PrepGraph Academy · Checklist
Principal’s AI implementation checklist
The list a principal works down before a single AI tool reaches a child: why leadership goes first, the five decisions that cannot be made in a staff room, what the school provides, the seven questions to put to any vendor, the leadership move at each stage of teacher activation, what to measure in what order, and a communication plan for staff, students and parents.
1Who owns this
- One sponsor, named. A programme owned by “the leadership team” in general is owned by nobody in particular, and the sessions are the first thing to slip.
- The policy owner and the CPD record owner may well be the same person in a small school. Write both lines anyway, so the responsibility is explicit rather than assumed.
School name, board and city
Leadership sponsor (name, designation) — attends the leadership session and owns the calendar
Academic coordinator (name) — keeps the CPD record
AI & responsible-use policy owner (name, designation)
Date this checklist was started
Target date for the leadership session
2Why leadership goes first
Read this before the first meeting. Each line is a way schools lose a term, and each is prevented by a decision on the next page rather than by anything a teacher can do.
- Adoption dies without ownership — Teachers protect their time, rightly. If management has not blocked the sessions, the practicum weeks and the weekly clinic on the annual plan, Week 5 collapses under unit tests, events and substitutions.
- Policy before practice — Students and parents will ask teachers what the school allows. Without a stated position, every teacher improvises — and the strictest and loosest answers both end up in the PTM.
- Evidence needs a reader — The programme measures activation, not attendance. If nobody in leadership reads the funnel each month and asks a teacher “what did the diagnostic show?”, the programme ends at the certificate.
- Decisions only leaders can make — Which teachers, which sections, how CPD hours are recorded, who owns the policy, who the AI Champions will be — none of this can be decided in a staff room.
3Decisions only leadership can make
Five rows. Each leaves the meeting with a name and a date, or it is not settled — and everything after it waits.
| Decision | What it means | Owner | Settled on |
|---|---|---|---|
| The cohort | 15–40 teachers; which subjects and grades; which sections become practicum classes (one class, one chapter, 10–30 students each). | ||
| The CPD recording approach | Which sessions the school records under which CBSE/NPST domain, for how many hours, and who keeps the attendance and record sheet. The school decides; we supply the template. | ||
| The policy owner | One named person who owns the AI and responsible-use policy, answers parents’ data questions, and brings the draft back for review — first with the teacher cohort’s Module 2 “We will / We will not” clauses in Week 3, then on the review cycle the policy names. | ||
| AI Champion nominations | Two or three teachers who will mentor colleagues and carry the workflow forward — the future Level 4 AI Mentor Educators. | ||
| The calendar | Dates for Weeks 0–12 against the school’s exams, events and staff-development days; the PTM that hosts the parent session; the assembly or staff meeting that hosts the student and staff orientation. |
4What the school provides
Five things, decided before the teacher cohort begins.
- ☐ A sponsor on the leadership team — The principal or vice-principal who attends the Week 0 workshop, owns the calendar, and receives the activation funnel. Without a sponsor, sessions slip.
- ☐ 15–40 teachers — One cohort. Ideally subject teachers of the same classes so practicum evidence can be compared across sections — with at least one computer teacher in the room.
- ☐ Timetable for the sessions — Two sessions a week for four weeks — 2-hour sessions in Weeks 1–2, 3-hour sessions in Weeks 3–4 (20 hours) — then a 60-minute practicum launch and a weekly 30-minute clinic for four weeks. After school hours or on staff-development days; we fit the school’s calendar, not the other way round.
- ☐ A practicum class per teacher — One class, one chapter, 10–30 students per teacher, with the students provisioned on PrepGraph — including the AI tutor for the practicum cohort — so the intervention step is real.
- ☐ A CPD record owner — Usually the academic coordinator. Decides how each session is recorded under CBSE’s CPD guidelines, keeps the attendance record, and files the evidence. We supply the template.
5Questions to put to any AI vendor — including PrepGraph
Ask these of every tool that will touch student data, and keep the written answers with the policy. An incomplete answer is itself an answer.
- ☐ What student data do you collect, and for what stated purpose? Is anything collected that the purpose does not need?
- ☐ Who is the data fiduciary for student data — the school or you? What does the agreement say?
- ☐ How is verifiable parental consent obtained and recorded, and how can a parent withdraw it?
- ☐ Where is the data stored, who can access it, and is it ever shared with third parties or used for advertising?
- ☐ How long is data kept, and how does the school have it deleted when the agreement ends?
- ☐ If there is a breach, who is told, and within what time?
- ☐ Can a teacher see what the AI told a student? Who has the last word when the AI is wrong?
6What leadership leaves the first session with
- ☐ Draft AI & responsible-use policy — One page: purpose, permitted and prohibited uses for staff and students, data and privacy, academic integrity, owner and review cycle.
- ☐ Cohort plan — Names, subjects, practicum sections and the 12-week dates on the school calendar.
- ☐ CPD record approach — Which session is recorded under which domain and for how many hours; who keeps the sheet.
- ☐ Communication plan — What staff, students and parents are told, by whom and when — including the parent AI-awareness session and the student responsible-AI orientation.
7The leadership move at each stage of teacher activation
Adoption is measured by what teachers do, not by how many were trained. Each row is a stage teachers pass through and the one thing leadership does to move the cohort past it. Read the list monthly with the coordinator and mark where the cohort actually is.
| Stage | The leadership move | Where the cohort is (date) | Done |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trained | Put the sessions on the annual plan and protect them; attend the first and last yourself. | ||
| Logged into PrepGraph | Make sure every cohort teacher has an account and a working device in Week 1 — not Week 4. | ||
| Created or selected a class | Decide the practicum sections with the teachers, not for them; one class, one chapter, 10–30 students. | ||
| Reviewed a student diagnostic | In Week 5, ask one question in the staff meeting: “What did your diagnostic show?” | ||
| Identified a learning gap | Ask for the concept, not the mark: “Which concept was weak — and was it a prerequisite from last year?” | ||
| Assigned an intervention | Protect the weekly 30-minute clinic; that is where interventions get assigned. | ||
| Reviewed student progress | Read the funnel monthly with the coordinator; notice teachers stuck at a stage and ask what is in the way. | ||
| Used the data in a classroom decision | Recognise a decision made on evidence — a reteach, a parent note, a regrouping — in front of colleagues. | ||
| Repeated the workflow | Make the second turn of the loop the norm for next term’s chapters; nominate AI Champions who will carry it. |
8What to measure, in this order
- 1. Process metrics first — The activation funnel: trained → logged in → class set up → diagnostic reviewed → gap identified → intervention assigned → progress reviewed → decision made → repeated. Read monthly. It tells you whether the workflow is becoming a habit before any academic number could.
- 2. Coverage second — Of the practicum chapters, how many had a diagnostic and a reassessment? What share of students in those sections were reassessed? How many teacher-written parent notes went out? These are the school’s own numbers and need no vendor.
- 3. The school’s own before/after, third — Per teacher, per chapter: mastery on the same competencies before and after the intervention, and how many students still need remediation. This is the teacher’s evidence — it belongs in the capstone and in the school’s records, labelled as what it is.
- What not to accept — No vendor should promise score gains in a term. Board-exam movement is slow and hard to attribute; a promise to “boost results” is a reason to ask the seven data questions more carefully. PrepGraph makes no such promise. We show the workflow and the teacher’s evidence.
9Communication plan
Decide who hears what, from whom, and when — before a single AI tool reaches a child. The rows are the audiences; the notes below are what the school actually does today, so nothing is promised that cannot be delivered.
- Teacher-written updates — A short note after a diagnostic or a reassessment, drafted with AI help from what the dashboard shows and read by the teacher before it goes. Nothing is sent to a parent automatically.
- A 45-minute parent AI-awareness session — Run by the school at a PTM: what AI is, how the school uses it, what it never does, and how parents can support responsible use at home. Outline and materials are in the resources.
- Plain words about the student AI tutor — The student’s AI tutor is part of the student’s AI plan; in the institutional programme the practicum classes are provisioned with it by the school or pilot. Every student, on any plan, gets homework, quizzes, doubts and progress. Say this plainly; parents ask.
- Consent and questions — Parents know what data is held, why, and whom to ask. The policy names that person.
| Audience | What we tell them | Who says it | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| All staff | |||
| The teacher cohort | |||
| Students — assembly or class | |||
| Parents — at a PTM | |||
| Management committee / trust | |||
| Sahodaya or cluster peers |
10What the school is working towards
PrepGraph AI-Enabled School Recognition — Later — criteria published, applications not yet open. A PrepGraph recognition — not a CBSE accreditation — for schools that have made the workflow part of how they teach. We expect a school to qualify only after its first full cohort; the criteria are published now so a school knows what it is working towards.
- ☐ 70–80% of participating teachers certified at Level 3 (PrepGraph Certified AI-Enabled Educator)
- ☐ A school AI policy and a responsible-use policy, adopted and reviewed
- ☐ AI Champions nominated and active
- ☐ Student responsible-AI orientation delivered
- ☐ Parent AI-awareness session delivered
- ☐ Evidence of personalised intervention — teachers’ own before/after records
- ☐ Implementation metrics — the activation funnel, a term after certification
11Sign-off
Principal — name, signature, date
Management representative — name, signature, date
Reviewed on (date), by whom
Next review date
Composed from the leadership workshop’s own material — the decisions, deliverables, vendor questions and activation funnel — so the sheet and the workshop always say the same thing. School recognition is a PrepGraph recognition, not a CBSE accreditation, and applications are not yet open.
Principal’s AI implementation checklist — PrepGraph Academy, academy.prepgraph.com/resources/principal-implementation-checklist. Free to use and adapt with attribution to PrepGraph Academy; not for resale. Full terms: academy.prepgraph.com/terms. Example figures, where given, are illustrative.
Independent programme, not a CBSE certification.
PrepGraph Academy is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by the Central Board of Secondary Education. Certificates are issued by PrepGraph. The programme is designed around the CBSE 2026-27 training theme and the CBSE/NPST professional-development domains; the host school decides how to record the hours under CBSE’s CPD guidelines and keeps the attendance records.