AI will now phone parents when a child is absent

What happened

The superintendent reported that Burrillville has signed on to a state Department of Education pilot of EDIA, an artificial intelligence tool for monitoring attendance. Instead of a school secretary ringing round, the system automatically sends text messages, phone calls and emails to parents and guardians when a child is marked absent. He described it as an actual voice that picks up the parent's response, holds a conversation and records the data, which is stored in the district's student information system. The pilot is free to the district for its first year, and the state hopes to extend it for two more.

Why it matters to families

This means an automated voice, not a person, may be the one asking a parent why their child is not in school, and those conversations are recorded and stored. Chronic absence is what the district is trying to reduce.

The evidence

The July 14, 2026 approved minutes record the superintendent describing the EDIA pilot, that it is an artificial intelligence tool for student attendance monitoring, that it triggers text messages, phone calls and emails automatically, that it uses an actual voice and picks up and records parent responses, that data is stored in the district's student information system, and that it is at no cost to the district. No policy or parent notice for the tool appears in the collected record.

The source