How to Use ChatGPT in Schools: OpenAI's Teacher Training Program

OpenAI has launched AI Skills Jam, an education program that aims to teach more than 1,600 US teachers to use ChatGPT and other AI tools in practice in their work.

How the program works

AI Skills Jam for K–12 Educators is a series of in-person workshops for staff at American K–12 schools, from elementary grades through the end of high school. The initiative is run by the OpenAI Academy education platform together with the charitable organization Walton Family Foundation. The goal is not merely to introduce participants to generative AI, but to let them try the tools on typical work tasks.

At the sessions, educators will work alongside OpenAI mentors. The focus is on lesson preparation, creating and adapting teaching materials, correspondence with parents and colleagues, and administrative work. The organizers promise a format where participants can ask questions, discuss risks and test the tools on scenarios close to real school practice.

• OpenAI announced the program on July 8, 2026.
• More than 1,600 teachers, administrators and school district leaders are expected to attend the in-person sessions.
• Meetings will take place in eight US cities, from July 8 to September 4, 2026.
• Venues include Jonesboro, Fairfax, Orlando, Chicago, San Bernardino, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.
• After the workshops, participants will get access to OpenAI Academy, a free online platform with materials and recommendations.

The first event is scheduled for Jonesboro, Georgia, on July 8, 2026, together with Clayton County schools. Sessions will follow in Virginia, Florida, Illinois, California, Arizona, Utah and Nevada. The last confirmed meeting will take place on September 4, 2026, in Las Vegas.

What teachers will get

Participants are meant to leave with applied skills rather than generic advice about the benefits of technology. OpenAI proposes working through everyday processes that typically eat up a lot of a teacher's time: planning lessons, preparing task variants, phrasing feedback, writing to parents and handling internal school communication.

An important part of the program is the chance to discuss responsible use of AI. In schools, such tools raise questions about the quality of teaching materials, age restrictions, the privacy of student data and the risk that automatically generated text will be inaccurate. A hands-on format with mentors may therefore be more useful than a one-off chatbot demo: educators need to understand where a model's output should be double-checked and which tasks should not be handed to it at all.

"Access to AI is only a starting point; the real opportunity lies in the ability to use these tools thoughtfully and to solve meaningful problems," said

Leah Belsky, OpenAI's vice president of education.

After the in-person meetings, educators can continue learning in OpenAI Academy, a free online platform with resources and recommendations on using AI. The company stresses that it does not want to stop at a one-day event and expects to build relationships with schools, district leaders and partners.

How much time can AI save?

According to a study by the Walton Family Foundation and Gallup, teachers who use AI tools at least once a week estimate their average time savings at 5.9 hours per week. Over a typical school year, that adds up to roughly six weeks of working time.

This saving is not necessarily used to reduce workload. According to the study, teachers spend the freed-up time on more detailed feedback for students, individual lesson preparation, communication with parents, or finishing work earlier. That makes the case for adopting AI in schools more concrete: it is not about replacing the teacher, but about cutting the repetitive tasks surrounding teaching.

The figure, however, rests on self-reporting by teachers who already use AI regularly. It does not mean that any tool will automatically deliver the same result for every school. The effect will depend on access to services, staff skills, internal policies and how well a given task suits automation.

What this means

OpenAI is moving from general talk about AI in education to large-scale, on-the-ground user training. If the program gives educators clear scenarios and rules for checking results, school operations could become one of the most practical areas for generative AI.

How can ChatGPT be used in education?

OpenAI is running a series of hands-on AI Skills Jam workshops for school educators to teach them to apply ChatGPT and AI tools in the classroom.

Is there free AI training for teachers?

Yes — the AI Skills Jam program from OpenAI and the Walton Family Foundation offers in-person, hands-on sessions for US teachers and school administrators.