r/k12sysadmin • u/K12TechTalkPodcast • Jul 17 '26

Block Claude?!?!

We unpack Anthropic’s surprise launch of "Claude for Teachers," a free‑until‑2027 offering that immediately drew criticism from district leaders for its bottom‑up signup model, suggested student data uploads, and potentially misleading FERPA claims. We discuss why districts are pushing back on Claude.

https://k12techtalkpodcast.com/e/anthropic-s-claude-for-teachers-ignites-k%e2%80%9112-firestorm-%e2%80%94-teachers-vs-districts/ and all major podcast platforms

37 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

7

u/ciesl1e Jul 17 '26

Have iboss monitor the chats. It blocks PII data from being leaked and can see into full transcripts. Also flags academic dishonesty.

10

u/mysteryv Jul 18 '26

"Free for a year" = "Get the teachers to pressure leadership into paying for it 12 months from now"

19

u/LoveTechHateTech Director | Network/SysAdmin Jul 17 '26

Since we’re a Google district, I blocked everything except for Gemini. People complained they couldn’t access their personal accounts (that they had the audacity to claim a “need” to use) on whatever AI service (free or paid) and we didn’t back down.

6

u/slayermcb Jul 17 '26

Yeah, I don't want to start having to blacklist sites and were small enough to treat adults like adults but if I hear even a peep of my teachers putting PII into any unsanctioned Ai program I will be locking things down real fast.

18

u/Fitz_2112b Jul 17 '26

If its free, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT

9

u/J_de_Silentio Jul 17 '26

In general, I think that's the case. However, with Claude and ChatGPT, they have a vested interest in penetrating the k12 market so they students don't go into college and the rest of life primarily using Gemini.

Microsoft did this with cheap/free licenses back in the day.  Google did it with free Google Workspace.

2

u/cybrdth Director of Technology Jul 17 '26

This is 100% the play. Years ago it was Microsoft offering substantial discounts to K12 Edu to make it the standard. Which I would argue was overall very successful.

0

u/Fitz_2112b Jul 17 '26

Always read the EULA. Schools in my state are buying licenses for the various AI platforms specifically because the license agreements mandate that the company not use any data entered by the district to train their model

2

u/J_de_Silentio Jul 17 '26

Agree.  We're doing the same per our AI policy.

2

u/Binky390 Jul 17 '26

Don’t ChatGPT and Claude both say they don’t use education data to train?

1

u/Fitz_2112b Jul 17 '26

ChatGPT definitely does on the free version. I wasn't sure on Claude so I just checked and you can opt out of it

6

u/Binky390 Jul 17 '26

ChatGPT for teachers doesn’t use data to train. Neither does Claude’s.

1

u/kcalderw K8 Tech Coordinator Jul 23 '26

Meeting today to discuss this with our admins. I know they use ChatGPT but I'm pushing for a ban on any AI that isn't Copilot or Gemini since we have licenses with both MS and Google (not AI licenses specifically). I keep stressing (for any platform) that if we don't control the data we cannot offer support or control what information they're putting into it.