Local GovTech: South Carolina school district explores $90,000 AI effort to personalize instruction

South Carolina‘s Lexington-Richland 5 school district is exploring AI technology to address one of education’s persistent challenges: providing personalized support to teachers managing classrooms with diverse student needs. The district’s consideration of Magic School, an AI assistant platform, represents a practical approach to leveraging technology where human resources are constrained. If implemented, this initiative could offer insights into how artificial intelligence might supplement teaching resources in public education systems facing staffing limitations.

The big picture: Lexington-Richland 5 school district is considering implementing an AI assistant platform to support teachers with personalized instruction and administrative tasks.

• Superintendent Akil Ross framed the initiative as giving teachers a “faculty” of their own, acknowledging that while hiring human assistants for all 1,400 teachers would be impractical, AI tools could fill this gap.
• The district estimates initial implementation costs at approximately $90,000 annually, significantly less than hiring human teaching assistants.

Key capabilities: The AI platform would assist teachers with multiple aspects of instruction and classroom management.

• Teachers could use the system to develop standards-aligned tests, generate individualized student worksheets, write lesson plans, provide personalized student feedback, and produce texts in multiple languages and reading levels.
• The district already uses a free version of Magic School, but this limited access doesn’t allow saving or storing created materials or provide full functionality.

Why this matters: The initiative addresses the challenge of teaching classrooms with widely varying student abilities and needs.

• A district study of one eighth-grade English class found students’ reading abilities ranged from second-grade to ninth-grade levels among just 21 students, creating significant instructional challenges.
• The AI platform would help tailor lesson plans to individual students’ capabilities while reducing teacher workload.

What’s next: District officials are planning to visit Horry County, which has already begun implementing Magic School, to observe the program in action.

• The school board will need to secure funding for the AI assistant in its 2025-26 budget, which must be approved by the end of June.
• Technology director Jenny Garris has confirmed the platform protects student privacy by not collecting personally identifiable information such as names or student IDs.