From Local Blog to Bot: How 16 Years of Sharing Citrus Schools’ Stories Became an AI Innovation at UF

More than 16 years ago, while campaigning for the Citrus County School Board, I decided to start a blog. My goal was simple: share the positive things happening in our local schools, highlight opportunities and experiences that people might not otherwise hear about, and provide information about public education in Citrus County and, occasionally, around Florida.

Over the years, Thomas Talks has become a place to tell the stories of our students, teachers, support staff, administrators, and schools. Many of those columns have also been published in the Citrus County Chronicle, extending their reach throughout our community. Together, these more than 500 columns have provided an opportunity to highlight the accomplishments, opportunities, and challenges facing public education while helping readers better understand the decisions that shape our schools. I never imagined this collection of writing would one day help train an artificial intelligence model at the University of Florida.

That unexpected development is now known as School Board “Tom Bot.”

From a Blog to a Virtual School Board Partner

Dr. Robert Winsler, a professor at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business, developed Tom Bot as a proof of concept with my permission. The project explores how years of an individual’s published writing, experiences, opinions, advocacy, and biographical information can be used to create a virtual representation of that person.

The model draws on my years of writing about education, school governance, public policy, and community engagement, along with experiences serving on the Citrus County School Board and participating in statewide education initiatives. It resides on UF’s HiPerGator supercomputer, where Dr. Winsler and his students have been exploring its potential in a learning environment.

Dr. Winsler explained what made the project particularly meaningful for his class:

“The class I use Tom Bot in is called Positive Business Communication, so Mr. Kennedy was a natural fit. The students have to interview someone who they consider to be a positive business communicator role model, and Mr. Kennedy is my positive communicator role model, so I was thrilled when he agreed to participate. The chat bot helps the students practice their questions before conducting the real thing with a business professional who has limited time to talk.”

The project shows how years of information can become a learning resource and help preserve institutional knowledge, support professional development, and explore complex issues.

Why the Experience Behind the Information Matters

The University of Florida’s CS Everyone Center for Computer Science Education, led by Dr. Maya Israel, is helping advance conversations about how computer science and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can support teaching, learning, and educational opportunity.

Dr. Israel sees particular value in the depth of experience and real-world context represented in Thomas Talks. As she explained:

“Tom Bot captures the nuance of Thomas Talks, which reflects how someone with deep expertise in school governance has worked through real decisions in real communities for many years. That makes it a valuable resource for both teaching and research.”

She is interested in exploring how similar approaches might help a new teacher try an instructional strategy, allow a student to learn from a professional in a field they are considering, or help a school leader prepare for a difficult conversation.

“As a researcher, I am excited to explore how tools like this can support meaningful learning for educators, students, and the people who lead our schools,” she added.

These possibilities matter as educators consider how technology can support students with different learning needs. AI’s value should be measured by whether it helps people learn, solve problems, and make better-informed decisions.

Preserving Experience for Future Leaders

Andrea Messina, chief executive officer of the Florida School Boards Association, brings an important statewide perspective to this conversation. Florida’s term limits for school board members create a unique challenge: preserving the experience, knowledge, and lessons learned by elected officials so future board members can benefit from them.

Every Florida district has its own story, but many of the governance challenges facing school board members are shared. Messina sees potential for tools like Tom Bot to make the insights and experiences of current and former board members more accessible, supporting professional development and helping future leaders think through difficult issues before facing them firsthand.

She also emphasizes that responsible AI implementation requires clear expectations for ownership of source material, accuracy, and privacy. These tools should complement human judgment and accountability, never replace them.

As she put it:

“Florida’s eight-year term limits make preserving experienced school board members’ lessons for the next generation especially important. Those lessons should not leave office with them. The value of something like Tom Bot should not be in simply sounding like Thomas, but in helping others think more deeply and lead more effectively.”

That distinction is important. The opportunity is not simply to recreate someone’s voice or personality. It is to preserve years of experience and make that knowledge available to others as they develop their own judgment and leadership.

Looking Beyond the Bot

As co-chair of the Florida School Boards Association’s AI in Education and Emerging Technology Committee and a founding member of Florida’s K-12 AI Task Force, I have spent considerable time exploring the opportunities and challenges these technologies present.

The question is no longer whether AI will influence education and the workforce. It is how we use it responsibly to improve opportunities for students and educators.

AI tools can personalize learning, provide practice, support English language learners, and offer alternative explanations. They can also help students explore careers, develop digital literacy, and prepare for a workforce where AI will be part of everyday work.

More advanced agentic AI systems may eventually take on complex, multistep tasks. That makes it even more important that students develop critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and the ability to evaluate information rather than simply accept what a technology produces.

Technology should strengthen human relationships, not replace them. Responsible implementation must include attention to privacy, accuracy, fairness, and trust.

Those considerations were important to my participation in the Tom Bot project. The University of Florida’s agreement with the AI companies involved includes protections intended to prevent the model from being used to train publicly available AI models. That added privacy protection was an important consideration in making this otherwise very personal experiment possible.

An Unexpected Chapter in the Journey

I am grateful to Dr. Winsler, Dr. Israel, Andrea Messina, and the faculty, researchers, and students who have helped make this project possible. I never imagined that writing about our schools for more than 16 years would contribute to AI research at one of Florida’s leading universities.

When I started Thomas Talks, I simply wanted to share stories, provide information, and help people better understand the good things happening in our public schools. That purpose has not changed.

If this unexpected chapter helps researchers explore how technology can preserve experience, support learning, and expand opportunities for future educators and school leaders, then those years of writing have taken me somewhere I never anticipated. And that is a pretty remarkable extension of the original idea.

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