In this Communicating with Parents Flint Campfire Session, we focused on how schools can build clearer, calmer, and more proactive parent communication about AI, and specifically how to explain Flint in a way that addresses common questions (privacy, safety, “is this just ChatGPT?”) while giving parents a tangible way to experience the platform themselves. This session followed an open-discussion format, combining ready-to-share resources with community Q&A about parent AI familiarity, transparency, and practical rollout challenges.

Content covered in this session includes:

• A shift to an open discussion format, prioritizing educator Q&A and real school experiences over a long presentation—aimed at surfacing what parents are actually asking right now and what schools need to communicate more clearly.

• A “starter kit” of parent-facing resources, including Flint FAQs, privacy and security pages, and an existing “AI Communication with Parents” guide with a clear table of contents and reusable language schools can adapt.

• New parent-facing webpage launch, introducing a dedicated Parents page (released that week) designed to give families a credible, “from the source” overview of what Flint is and how it works—supporting schools that want parent messaging to be verifiable beyond internal school communications.

• A new “Flint for Parents” demo workspace, created so parents can explore Flint without being added to a school’s workspace, increasing user counts, or seeing any other parent’s activity.

• Parent 101 learning flow inside the demo workspace, including an “Understanding Flint” activity modeled after teacher/student literacy experiences (parents can ask questions and learn interactively), plus a few sample activities so parents can preview what classroom use may look like.

• Parent AI knowledge is a wide spectrum, shared by educators who have run parent workshops: some parents had never used AI at all, others asked advanced, high-level questions. The session discussed how this variability impacts communication tone and what resources schools need.

• A common parent worry: “AI at home vs. AI at school,” noting that schools may feel confident about controlled classroom use but are concerned about what students do with general-purpose AI tools outside school hours and how Flint’s “support, not answers” positioning helps.

• Transparency requests and the “parent portal” question, including discussion of whether parents should be able to see student conversations with Sparky, assigned activities, or a limited view similar to LMS parent access. The group acknowledged the “blurred line” between educational privacy and parent reassurance, and surfaced it as a valuable product-direction input.

• Moderation + parent communication link, noting that parents seeing how students actually interact with AI (including frustration or inappropriate tone) can prompt better home conversations and reinforce digital citizenship expectations.

• Legal/compliance question on recorded voice, raised around a New Hampshire “right to know” style law requiring explicit consent for each audio/video recording instance—discussed in the context of voice features used in world language learning, with an offer to follow up directly to explore workarounds and compliance-friendly practices.

• A real school challenge: parent demand for “AI fluency,” while teachers are still learning:

  • Schools shared that they have policies and advisory lessons, but teacher-to-parent communication about classroom AI use isn’t consistent yet.

  • The session reinforced that AI literacy plus clear “here’s what we’re teaching and why” messaging helps parents understand safeguards and learning outcomes.

• Next steps and feedback loop, encouraging educators to use the Parents page + demo workspace as “first response” resources, share requests (like parent AI literacy materials) if demand increases, and follow up with Flint for specific policy, consent, or parent-communication scenarios.

Slides from the presentation can be found here.

Got more questions, comments, or feedback for this topic? Feel free to raise them within the Flint Community.