Check What ChatGPT Says About Your School

If you haven’t done it yet, now’s the time. Open ChatGPT or Gemini and ask “What are the best school districts near me?”

You’ll get a helpful answer. But remember: AI isn’t recommending you. It’s summarizing you.

AI Gives a Good Snapshot of Your School’s Digital Footprint

AI tools build answers from patterns across what already exists online:

• Your website
• News coverage
• Ranking sites (Niche, GreatSchools, etc.)
• Parent reviews and forums
• Local blogs and community content
• Social posts and comments

Then it compresses all of that into something that sounds like a recommendation. Served in a conversational, friendly wrapper.

AI Treats Patterns as Truth

Here’s where it gets tricky. If certain words or themes show up often enough, AI starts repeating them back as fact:
“Innovative”
“Tight-knit community”
“High-performing”
“Lots of opportunities”
No single school district owns those descriptors, but repetition turns it in AI’s reality. If the only consistent content about your district is outdated, negative, or generic, those will become your “truth” too.

Prompts You Should Be Testing

If you do one thing after reading this, make it this: Run a few of these searches and read them like a parent:

• “Tell me about [Your District Name]”
• “What are the pros and cons of [Your District Name]?”
• “Compare [Your District] vs [Neighboring District]”
• “Is [Your District] a good place to send kids?”
• “What do parents say about [Your District]?”
• “Best schools near [Your City]”
• “Best school districts near [Your City]”

Then push it a little further once you have a handful of recommendations to compare:

• “Which district is more innovative?”
• “Which district has better support for students?”
• “Which schools have smaller class sizes?”

You’ll start to see patterns fast.

“Do this activity with your leadership team,” Andrew Hagen recommends. “It can be eye-opening to see what information AI shares about your schools. Does the experience parents describe online actually match the brand you’re trying to build? If not, now is the time to explore why.”

The Prompt Shapes the Answer

Small wording changes in an AI prompt can get different results. We tested outputs by asking AI a question:

“I’m moving to <City Name> this summer. What is the best school district to enroll my kids in?”

We received a single, specific answer. However, because our prompt included the word ‘district,’ our AI assumed we were searching for public school districts and omitted many charter and private school options in the area. When we removed the word ‘district’ from our search, faith-based and private school recommendations surfaced. 

AI is constantly trying to guess intent. Unfortunately, we can’t predict what words families will use when asking AI for advice. But we can influence some outputs by ensuring the message we want to convey is used clearly, consistently, and conversationally across our websites.

What To Look For In The Answers

Note patterns. Repeated words are your reputation signal.

We asked ChatGPT to compare three nearby public school districts (all of which are high-performing schools, ranked among the top ten in Minnesota)

Here’s what it told us:

The Honest Side-By-Side

Is District C really the most innovative district? We don’t know, but we do know that ChatGPT saw that word repeated across the district website and in parent reviews, so it has become a “fact” for AI.

Is District A really only good for high-achieving kids? ChatGPT seems pretty confident, thanks to parent reviews.

Does District B actually have limited options? (Only when you hold it up against two of the top-performing, top-funded districts in the state).

What if the AI Results Are Right?

Let’s pretend we’re District A. And honestly? High-achieving students do thrive here.

If “high-achieving” is an integral part of your brand, you should be thrilled that AI has accurately represented your school.

But, if you’re a school or district that serves a wide variety of learners, this becomes a problem because that’s not the ONLY story you want told.

What about:

• Kindergarten families
• Students who need more support
• Kids still figuring it out

If the dominant narrative is “this is a place for high achievers,” other families may quietly opt out before ever talking to you.

Not because it’s wrong. Because it’s incomplete. 

Broaden the Information AI Can Pull From

This isn’t about correcting AI. Instead, it’s about broadening the story AI has to work with. 

Ask yourself:

• Are we over-associated with one type of student or experience?
• Are we clearly showing support, belonging, and growth, not just outcomes?
• Do younger families see themselves here?
• Does our online reputation match our brand? 

This isn’t about a full website overhaul or a brand rewrite. Most of the time, it’s smaller shifts.

If all your parent reviews are coming from one grade level,
actively seek out honest reviews from other ages.

If your website leans heavily into high school content,
balance it with stronger storytelling from early learning and elementary.

If your messaging highlights outcomes but not experience,
show what it actually feels like to be a student in your district.

If one program or strength dominates everything,
make sure other pathways are just as visible.

What if the AI Results Are Wrong?

Sure, sometimes AI gets it wrong. It hallucinates. It pulls in outdated or misleading info. But most of the time?

It’s a really efficient Google search with a strong point of view.

So if AI is telling you:

• your school isn’t very welcoming
• students who struggle get overlooked
• communication is confusing or inconsistent

…it’s worth paying attention. That idea exists somewhere online, in public content. 

Don’t Dismiss It. Investigate It!

This is the moment to help your team stay curious, not defensive. You’ll never control every review, comment, or conversation happening online, but the overall sentiment is what AI reflects back, and that’s what families are seeing first.

Taking the time to explore how your district shows up in AI responses is one of the fastest ways to uncover outdated narratives, surface perception gaps, and understand which stories carry the most weight.

For school communicators, this can be especially powerful. It creates a shared, external perspective that moves conversations beyond opinion and into something more tangible. When leadership teams can clearly see how their district is being described (accurately or not), it often builds stronger alignment and urgency around messaging and brand clarity. Because at the end of the day, if you can’t tell your own story succinctly, AI will never be able to do it, either.