I took AI for Education's GenAI Literacy Trainer Essentials as a mom wanting to sharpen the parent education workshops I was already running. I finished it on a mission.

What happened after

My final project got me clear on the unmet need: parents of middle schoolers are an underserved audience in the AI literacy conversation, at a time in their kids' lives when the stakes couldn't be higher.

That project became the first workshop in PARENT-IN-THE-LOOP™, AI curriculum and training focused on giving parents the skills to help their families navigate and thrive in the age of AI.

When parents don't understand AI, they can't ask informed questions at school, spot warning signs at home, or have meaningful conversations with their kids about responsible use. They're also missing the real benefits: ways AI can help their families thrive through intentional use. They're expected to guide their families through a technology they were never taught, with no institutional support.

Collaborating with other moms

I co-hosted a virtual AI literacy workshop with another mom teaching AI literacy across her communities. Comparing notes on what parents were actually asking made the curriculum sharper than I could have made it alone.

PTA discussions and invitations

Conversations started with PTAs in my school district and in other states. My daughter's middle school PTA invited me in. I led a session on parent-led, AI-assisted personalized learning at home, introducing parents to ways they could play a more proactive role in how their kids study. Later that month, I was selected as a 2026 EDSAFE AI Alliance Catalyst Fellow, a national fellowship for education leaders working on responsible AI in schools.

Preview workshop content below

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PTA sessions and Virginia Tech STEM Fair

The middle school PTA invited me back for another session, this time focused on helping parents reduce the mental load. Then Virginia Tech's Innovation Campus invited me to the STEM Discovery Fair. Across parent sessions and conversations at the booth, I kept hearing the same thing.

One parent looked at a statistic about how few parents seek out AI information and said:

"That's me. I don't know where to look."

That's the moment I come back to most. Many parents know they need to build knowledge around AI but are overwhelmed about where to begin. So I built a mini-course on the use case I found to be of greatest interest: parent-led, AI-assisted personalized learning using NotebookLM.

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More parent communities and National AI Literacy Day

More invitations came. My daughter's elementary school principal asked me to lead a parent session. A women's community in another part of my state. A community of mothers and teenage daughters. The work was spreading across grade levels and parent communities on its own.

On National AI Literacy Day, I partnered with 2 other moms doing similar work to host a virtual panel and contributed a lesson on teaching bias to elementary and middle schoolers to the curriculum (When AI Makes Choices for Us: Understanding Bias in AI Models). 45 minutes. Parents run it at home with their kids. No teaching background needed.

When do we invest the same energy in parents?

At ASU+GSV 2026, session after session covered durable skills for students and employees. Across most of the dialogue about helping kids develop uniquely human skills, schools and teachers are centered. Parents and homes are rarely named.

I left San Diego with one question: when do we invest the same energy in the trusted adults at home?

Read my reflections here: The Job Description of Parents Has Changed. Is Anyone Talking About That?