Two Marshwood High School students and the district’s interim school superintendent will represent Maine next month at a national conference to explore artificial intelligence and its impact on public education.
Marshwood rising seniors Luci Cox and Zora Noble, both of South Berwick, will join Interim Superintendent Heidi Early-Hersey and a class of students and school leaders from all 50 states to discuss the use and impact of AI on schools.
The three will participate in the 2026 Leadership and Innovation Fellowship at America’s Youth AI Festival in Boston and Cambridge, along with two student senators from each state and 50 school system leaders. The first-of-its-kind gathering will take place July 17 to 19 during the nation’s 250th celebration.
The Marshwood group was recruited “somewhat at the last minute,” according to Early-Hersey, after an organizer realized Maine was the only state without representation and contacted former Marshwood superintendent Mary Nash. Nash then reached out to Early-Hersey.
“I agreed to attend and to (quickly) recruit a couple of interested students,” Early-Hersey wrote in an email. “I worked with Mr. Livingston, an English teacher at MHS, to recruit Zora and Luci. He shared the opportunity with all his junior students, and they were the first two to volunteer.”
“I think what excites me most about this opportunity is the chance for our students to be at the forefront of AI policy development,” she said. “AI is going to have a huge impact on their lives, and elevating the voices of young people as we grapple with AI and the ways we want to interact with it in different spaces feels important.”
The students and school leaders will explore how artificial intelligence can be used responsibly, ethically and productively in schools, communities, and the broader society students will inherit, according to a press release from the event sponsors.
The conference is sponsored by Day of AI; MIT Raise; AASA, The School Superintendents Association; and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.
Noble, who serves as the student representative to the MSAD 35 board of directors, said she is especially interested in what might be the content of an AI policy for the local school district.
“Right now the district doesn’t have an AI policy,” she said.
Noble is also looking forward to participating in the student senate with representatives from all 50 states.
“We will be proposing bills, discussing them and voting on them,” she said, noting students’ choices will be considered in developing AI policies.
Cox, who is active in student government, says her biggest concern about AI is protection of individual privacy.
“I am interested in how it will all work with sharing of personal information,” she said.
Cox and Noble work together to make sure students’ voices are heard by the school board, with Noble taking the concerns gathered by Cox to school board meetings.
Student senators at the conference will gather at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute to deliberate and pass a new “National AI Policy” for public K-12 classrooms, and ASSA will share the results with its network of more than 10,000 school leaders, according to a press release from the sponsors.
Student voice is a key element in AI implementation but is often overlooked, according to the sponsors’ statement. Students will offer their insights on how AI should be incorporated and taught throughout the country and their work will have real-world impact – “a policy made for students, by students,” the press release said.
The Festival weekend includes a reception at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on July 17; a “Me, Myself, and AI” student art contest, with winners showcased at the MIT Museum on July 18; an “AI for a Better World” competition, with five winning student teams sharing their solutions to community and global problems at the MIT Media Lab on July 18; and a live, AI-enabled art performance at the MIT Museum entitled “AI Live” presented by Mathworks on July 18.
