In the first two posts in our back-to-school series, we covered your student’s Title IX rights and the laws protecting students from discrimination based on race, national origin, and disability. This final installment turns to the issues generating the most headlines — and, in our experience, the most calls from worried parents: cell phones, artificial intelligence, and social media.
Technology cases now sit at the center of school discipline. A student’s phone, chat history, or social media account can turn an ordinary school year into a suspension hearing, an expulsion proceeding, or even a criminal referral — sometimes for conduct that happened entirely off campus. Here is what Colorado families should know.
Cell phones: every public Colorado school now has a policy
This is the first school year in which every Colorado public and charter school is required to have a formal cell phone policy. Under House Bill 25-1135, districts had until July 1, 2026 to adopt policies governing when students may possess and use phones and other personal devices during the school day, and many have used the occasion to move to “away for the day” rules — phones in lockers, pouches, or backpacks from first bell to last.
Two points matter for parents. First, the policy must be posted on the school’s website, so read it now — including the consequences for violations, which vary widely by district. Second, the law requires exceptions for disability accommodations, medical needs, and emergencies. If your child uses a phone to monitor blood glucose, manage anxiety under a 504 plan, or communicate through assistive technology, that exception is not a favor the school is doing you — it is a legal requirement, and it belongs in writing in your child’s IEP or 504 plan.
One more caution: confiscating a phone and searching its contents are two very different things. If a school goes beyond taking the phone and starts reading messages or scrolling photos, significant privacy questions arise. If a search of your child’s phone leads to discipline, talk to a lawyer before assuming the school acted within its authority.
AI and schoolwork: accusations are the new battleground
Districts are still catching up to generative AI, and the rules can differ not just district to district but classroom to classroom. Some teachers encourage AI-assisted brainstorming; others treat any use as cheating. Make sure your student actually knows each teacher’s expectations, because “I didn’t know it wasn’t allowed” rarely carries the day.
The bigger problem we see is with false accusations and low standards of proof. AI-detection tools are notoriously unreliable and produce false positives — including flagging the work of strong writers and students who speak English as a second language. A detector score alone is thin evidence, yet students are being failed, removed from courses, and disciplined on that basis. If your child is accused, don’t let them accept a consequence on the spot. Ask what evidence the school has beyond a detector score, request the school’s policy in writing, and preserve your child’s drafts, version history, and browser history — Google Docs revision history has cleared more students than any argument a lawyer can make. Some students go so far as to record themselves drafting essays and other work of significance to protect themselves against possible accusations of misuse of AI. Academic discipline still requires basic fairness, and serious consequences require real process.
Deepfakes and intimate images: the law caught up, and the stakes are criminal
The most alarming technology cases involve AI-generated intimate images. Colorado closed a gap here: Senate Bill 25-288, effective August 2025, extended the state’s sexual exploitation and intimate-image laws to realistic AI-generated images of identifiable people, including minors, and gave victims a private right to sue those who share or threaten to share such images. At the federal level, the TAKE IT DOWN Act criminalizes publishing nonconsensual intimate images — real or AI-generated — and requires platforms to remove them within 48 hours of a victim’s request.
Parents should hear this two ways. If your child is targeted, you have real tools: report to the school (which has obligations under Title IX and state law), demand removal from platforms, and consider civil and criminal remedies. And if your child is the one creating or sharing such images — even “as a joke,” even of a classmate they know — they may be committing a felony. This is a conversation worth having at the dinner table before it becomes a conversation with a defense attorney.
Social media: off-campus posts, on-campus consequences
Students often believe schools can’t touch anything posted outside school. That’s wrong. Schools may discipline off-campus speech when it substantially disrupts school or targets other students — cyberbullying, harassment, and threats top the list. At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that students don’t shed their free speech rights at the schoolhouse gate, and schools overreach when they punish off-campus speech that is merely critical, unpopular, or crude. The line is fact-specific, and it is litigated constantly.
Two trends are worth watching this year. Threats — even ones a student insists were jokes — are being referred to law enforcement quickly, and many districts use monitoring software that scans school accounts and devices and flags student messages automatically, so an offhand comment in a school email or shared doc can trigger a formal response. And legislatures nationwide continue to restrict minors’ social media access, with age-verification and parental-consent laws spreading state to state and new rules beginning to reach AI chatbots as well.
A quick checklist for the tech school year
- Read your school’s cell phone policy and, if your child needs a device exception, get it written into the IEP or 504 plan now.
- Have your student ask each teacher what AI use is permitted, and save drafts and revision history for significant assignments.
- Talk about images. Creating, requesting, or forwarding intimate images of classmates — real or AI-generated — can be a crime, not just a school rules violation.
- Remind your child that “private” group chats aren’t. Screenshots end up in principals’ offices every week.
- If discipline starts, slow it down. Ask for the allegations and evidence in writing, don’t consent to interviews or phone searches without understanding the stakes, and get advice early if suspension, expulsion, or police involvement is on the table.
When to talk to an Education Lawyer
Technology cases move fast, and they often involve overlapping school discipline rules, civil rights laws, and criminal exposure. If your child is facing suspension or expulsion over a phone, a post, or an AI accusation — or has been the victim of online harassment or an intimate-image deepfake and the school isn’t responding — early legal guidance can change the outcome.
At Brown Education Law Group, we represent Colorado students and families in school discipline matters, harassment and discrimination cases, and the growing gray areas in between. If something this school year lands your family in one of them, reach out to schedule a consultation. And with that, we wrap up our back-to-school series — here’s to a smooth and uneventful year.
