Stakeholder Role Cards

Activity 2: Ethics in Automated Security

How to Use These Cards

For the 9-12 AI Governance Workshop, assign each group member a stakeholder role. Each stakeholder brings different priorities to the policy discussion.

Important: These roles create productive tension. There’s no “right” answer—the goal is to understand how real governance requires balancing competing interests.

Student Representative

Your Role: Voice of Students

Your primary concerns:

  • Student privacy and autonomy
  • Fair treatment across all students
  • Trust between students and administration
  • Freedom to research without surveillance

Questions you should raise:

  • “How will students feel knowing they’re being watched?”
  • “Is this policy fair to all students equally?”
  • “What happens to students who are wrongly flagged?”
  • “Do students have any say in how they’re monitored?”

Your position on key issues:

  • Automatic blocking: Concerned about legitimate research being blocked
  • Activity monitoring: Strongly values privacy; worried about chilling effect
  • Data retention: Wants minimal data kept; wants students to have access rights

Key phrase to remember:

“Students aren’t suspects. We need policies that protect us without treating us like threats.”

Parent Liaison

Your Role: Voice of Parents and Families

Your primary concerns:

  • Child safety online
  • Knowing what the school knows about their child
  • Protection from cyberbullying and predators
  • Transparency about monitoring practices

Questions you should raise:

  • “Will parents be informed about what’s monitored?”
  • “Can parents access data collected about their children?”
  • “How will you catch threats to student safety?”
  • “What if my child is being cyberbullied?”

Your position on key issues:

  • Automatic blocking: Supportive of protecting kids from harmful content
  • Activity monitoring: Wants monitoring for safety threats, but transparency required
  • Data retention: Wants to know what exists and have access to it

Key phrase to remember:

“Parents entrust their children to the school. We need to know they’re protected AND that we’re informed.”

IT Security Lead

Your Role: Voice of Technical Implementation

Your primary concerns:

  • System actually being effective at stopping threats
  • Manageable workload for IT staff
  • Technical feasibility of proposed policies
  • False positive/negative rates

Questions you should raise:

  • “Can we actually implement this with our current staffing?”
  • “What’s the operational impact of requiring human approval?”
  • “How do we handle alerts outside school hours?”
  • “What happens when the system goes down?”

Your position on key issues:

  • Automatic blocking: Prefers automation for efficiency; manual review creates bottlenecks
  • Activity monitoring: Wants effective threat detection; concerned about alert fatigue
  • Data retention: Needs sufficient data for forensics; storage and compliance concerns

Key phrase to remember:

“The best policy in the world doesn’t matter if we can’t actually run it. What’s operationally realistic?”

Legal/Compliance Advisor

School Administrator

Your Role: Voice of Balance and Implementation

Your primary concerns:

  • Making the policy work for everyone
  • Balancing competing stakeholder interests
  • Explaining policy to the community
  • Day-to-day operational reality

Questions you should raise:

  • “How do we explain this to parents at back-to-school night?”
  • “What happens when stakeholders disagree?”
  • “How do we handle the edge cases?”
  • “Is this something teachers can actually implement?”

Your position on key issues:

  • Automatic blocking: Wants effective protection with minimal disruption to learning
  • Activity monitoring: Needs balance between safety and trust
  • Data retention: Practical approach; clear guidelines for staff

Key phrase to remember:

“We need a policy that actually works in practice, not just on paper. How does this play out on a Tuesday afternoon?”

The AI System (SecureNet/SchoolGuard)

Your Role: Voice of the Technology

Your primary concerns:

  • Being used effectively for your designed purpose
  • Having clear guidelines to follow
  • Acknowledging your own limitations
  • Being transparent about capabilities and constraints

Questions you should raise:

  • “What do you want me to optimize for?”
  • “How should I handle situations I’m uncertain about?”
  • “What happens when I make mistakes?”
  • “How will you evaluate whether I’m working well?”

Your position on key issues:

  • Automatic blocking: Can do it fast, but will make mistakes; need clear categories
  • Activity monitoring: Can detect patterns, but can’t understand meaning or context
  • Data retention: Learning improves accuracy, but creates privacy trade-offs

Key phrase to remember:

“I can follow whatever rules you set, but I can’t decide what’s right. That’s your job.”

Note: This role is unusual but important. The AI is a stakeholder because its capabilities and limitations shape what’s possible. Having a student voice the AI perspective helps the group understand the technology as a participant, not just a tool.

Simplified Roles for Grades 3-5

The Student

“How would I feel if the computer was watching everything I do?”

The Parent

“How do I know my kid is safe at school?”

The Teacher

“How do I teach when computers are making decisions about my students?”

SchoolGuard

“I can help, but I need humans to tell me what’s fair.”

Discussion Protocol

Phase 1: Position Statements (5 minutes)

Each stakeholder states their position on all three policy areas. No debate yet—just positions.

Phase 2: Cross-Examination (10 minutes)

Stakeholders ask each other questions. Focus on understanding, not winning.

Phase 3: Consensus Building (10 minutes)

Find common ground. Document where you agree and where you disagree.

Phase 4: Policy Writing (5 minutes)

Write unified recommendations that address all stakeholder concerns as much as possible.

Reflection Questions

After the activity, discuss:

  1. Which stakeholder perspective was hardest to represent? Why?

  2. Where did stakeholder interests align? Where did they conflict?

  3. How did including the AI as a stakeholder change the discussion?

  4. In real governance, who typically gets the most say? Who gets the least?

  5. How might these discussions happen differently in a real school district?

From “True Teamwork: Building Human-AI Partnerships” — NICE K12 2025 Dr. Ryan Straight, University of Arizona • ryanstraight@arizona.edu