OpenAI on Wednesday announced a substantial expansion of its ChatGPT for Teachers initiative, adding 55 additional school districts across 20 states. The company said the latest wave of partnerships will make the tool available to more than 100,000 additional educators and staff members.
With this round of additions, OpenAI reported that its program now partners with more than 100 K-12 organizations across 30 states, and that it provides free access and training to in excess of 300,000 educators and staff. OpenAI initially launched ChatGPT for Teachers in 2025, rolling it out to nearly 150,000 teachers and staff at that time.
The newly announced district partnerships include districts that represent one in five of America’s 20 largest public school districts, according to the company. OpenAI said ChatGPT for Teachers will remain free for verified U.S. K-12 educators through June 2028.
Alongside the district expansion, OpenAI disclosed a data privacy agreement that spans 16 states and operates under the Student Data Privacy Consortium framework. The list of states covered by this agreement includes Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. The company noted that California is governed by a separate agreement.
OpenAI described the privacy framework as a common structure districts can use to assess ChatGPT for Teachers against student data privacy requirements. The company also said that data shared in a ChatGPT for Teachers workspace is not used to train OpenAI’s models by default.
Leah Belsky, Vice President of Education at OpenAI, commented on the role of schools and educators in preparing students to use AI tools: "Education has always helped young people prepare for the world they’re going to inherit. In the age of AI, students need educators and schools that help them build judgment, confidence, and agency with these tools."
OpenAI provided data from a privacy-preserving analysis showing that between January 1 and July 16, educators sent more than 1.9 million messages tied to time-saving tasks. The company broke those messages down into categories including roughly 900,000 about report cards and progress reports, about 800,000 related to lesson planning, and more than 100,000 each concerning substitute plans and teacher-evaluation materials.
To support hands-on skills development, OpenAI said it is running AI Skills Jams this summer through OpenAI Academy in partnership with the Walton Family Foundation. More than 1,600 teachers, administrators, and district leaders are participating in the sessions. Among participants, 93% reported they left with something they could use again, and 96% said they planned to apply what they learned within 30 days.
The company also noted an ongoing collaboration with the American Federation of Teachers on the National Academy for AI Instruction, a five-year effort intended to equip 400,000 K-12 educators with AI skills. OpenAI emphasized that ChatGPT for Teachers is available only to administrators, faculty, and educators.