Hawaiʻi · AI Literacy & CTE Workforce-Readiness Pilot
Students are going to use AI anyway. The question is whether Hawaiʻi schools teach them to use it well.
A practical pilot where students build real things, teachers keep oversight, schools get structure and assessment, and the pathway connects to existing Hawaiʻi education and funding priorities. It fits a lane Hawaiʻi already has: HIDOE lists Artificial Intelligence as a program of study under the Information Technology & Digital Transformation CTE pathway.
Not “they learned about AI.” By the end, a student can make, explain, and defend something real.
1 What students can do by the end
- Build an AI-assisted project or app prototype
- Evaluate AI outputs for accuracy, bias, and limits
- Document their process — what the AI did and what they changed
- Use AI responsibly — privacy, consent, attribution, honesty
- Present portfolio-ready work they can show and defend
2 What they leave with
- A portfolio of real artifacts + a short reflection
- An assessed capstone (build, then explain & defend to a rubric)
- CTE pathway progress when adopted under HIDOE program standards
- AI-900 exam prep (national cert target; HI recognition not claimed)
3 Who teaches it & what it costs
- One CTE teacher — no CS department, no coding prerequisite
- Teacher keeps oversight — managed accounts, no student PII in prompts
- Existing devices — browser-based; no new hardware to start
- Low entry cost — mainly teacher time + a short PD institute
4 How it gets funded
Lanes worth mapping & pressure-testing (fit, not guaranteed funding):
- Perkins V / CTE — as a career pathway (via Hawaiʻi P-20 / State CTE Office)
- Title IV-A — digital literacy & effective use of technology
- 21st Century Community Learning Centers — out-of-school / summer
- HIDOE summer learning — run inside existing summer structures
5 Equity first — not pay-to-play
A family-pay camp would gate access by income and widen the gap it should close. So this is built to be school-, grant-, partner-, or scholarship-funded.
- Less “parents buy an AI summer camp”
- More “a school or community partner brings in a workforce-readiness pilot”
- Targeted to students who’d otherwise be left out
6 The smallest version to pilot
- One teacher, one cohort, a few weeks — in-school, after-school, or summer
- Funded from the start, on existing devices — not family-pay
- One real artifact per student, documented and presented
- An on-ramp — the pilot becomes the front end of Course 1
Funding references describe alignment and fit, not guaranteed funding; eligibility and purchasing rest with HIDOE CTE leadership, Hawaiʻi P-20 / the State CTE Office, UH partners, federal-program coordinators, and procurement officials. Microsoft AI-900 is offered as national exam preparation only; Hawaiʻi-specific credential recognition was not verified and is not claimed. No Hawaiʻi CTE-specific Weighted Student Formula weight was verified, so none is claimed.