High school students at Don Soffer Aventura High School and Alonzo and Tracy Mourning Senior High now have access to Google Gemini for Education.
Incoming superintendent Rafael Villalobos told the Miami Herald in a Thursday, Aug. 13 interview that AI should serve as a learning tool, not a crutch. His bottom line: students still need to master material on their own.
"At some point or another, they're going to have a real assessment, and that real assessment is not going to have AI with them, so they've got to learn it as well," Villalobos said in the interview.
The stance marks a shift in tone from outgoing superintendent Jose Dotres, who told educators at his Aug. 7 opening-of-schools address at Miami Senior High School that "technology can provide information but relationships provide meaning," according to WSVN.
Villalobos, a 32-year district veteran who most recently oversaw more than 100 schools and 80,000 students as South Region Superintendent, outlined three principles for AI in classrooms: teaching responsible use, preserving student creativity and resilience, and ensuring the technology supplements rather than replaces learning.
What it means locally
For families at Don Soffer Aventura High and Mourning Senior High, the district's AI rollout is already underway. Miami-Dade announced in February a partnership with Google giving all district high school students free access to full-length SAT practice exams through Google Gemini, grounded in Princeton Review content. Both Aventura-area high schools are included.
The district's back-to-school materials confirm Gemini for Education is available for grades 9–12 this school year, with teachers also using AI tools to personalize instruction and build lesson plans. A 2025 Pew Research Center survey found 54% of U.S. teens have used AI chatbots for schoolwork, and 1 in 10 say they do all or most of their assignments with chatbot help.
One district school is already further along. At Venetian Parc Academy, elementary students spend about 35 minutes daily on AI-based learning, working in groups with no individual desks. The school grew from about 50 students to 200 in its second year and now has a wait list.
Whether Aventura City of Excellence School, a K–8 charter operated by the City of Aventura, will adopt the same AI tools is less clear. As a city-run charter, ACES is not directly under M-DCPS curriculum mandates, though it follows district standards on many fronts.
AI alongside closures and a pay referendum
Villalobos's AI philosophy is one piece of a broader first-year agenda. In the same interview, he confirmed more school closures are coming, targeting campuses with 250–350 students that have capacity for 1,000 or more. Nine schools were closed or consolidated over the summer. He also called a voter referendum on teacher pay "extremely, extremely important," saying he wants Miami-Dade base salaries competitive with New York City's roughly $70,000 starting pay.
As we reported Aug. 5, Villalobos has framed the pay issue as central to retaining educators districtwide.
His contract and official start date had not been finalized as of Aug. 13. The School Board was expected to meet Wednesday, Aug. 19 to discuss salary negotiations and transition details.
What families should watch
The ACES and Don Soffer Aventura High School joint Governing Board last met May 21. No fall 2026 meeting date has been posted. The board typically meets quarterly, and families can check the City of Aventura's agenda center for updates on when AI policy and other district changes may come before local school leaders.
