Ontario 2026–27 independent planning resource

Plan Ontario’s 2026–27 Cyber Safety & AI PA day around decisions, not demos.

An independent planning resource for Ontario school and board teams: connect the mandatory topic to owned decisions, privacy and procurement questions, anonymous classroom workflows, and a traceable 30-, 60-, and 90-day follow-up.

Official context and dated sources

The mandatory topic comes from Ontario's current PA-day direction. This independent resource is not an official provincial or board program and does not establish compliance or approval.

  • Ontario mandatory PA-day topics — Government of Ontario. The 2026–27 list includes Cyber Safety and Artificial Intelligence as a mandatory professional activity topic.
  • Enhancing Digital Security and Trust Act — Government of Ontario. Use the current provincial page to locate the statutory and regulatory context relevant to digital security and transparency.
  • Digital Privacy Charter for Ontario Schools — Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. A 12-commitment privacy charter intended to strengthen responsible digital-tool use, transparency, and trust in schools and boards.
  • K-12 AI Accountability Framework resources — ECNO / K-12 Cyber Awareness. A dated, adaptable starting point for Ontario boards; teams should verify the version and fit to their own context.

Eight-step planning checklist

  1. Name the decision the PA day must support

    Write one leadership question the session should clarify. Examples: whether to begin a bounded pilot, revise an existing practice, or pause until an evidence gap is closed.

    Evidence to retain: A one-sentence decision question and the leader who owns it.

  2. Confirm source and authority boundaries

    Separate provincial direction, board policy, local procedures, professional judgment, and open questions. Record source dates and who can interpret each local requirement.

    Evidence to retain: A dated source register with a named local validator.

  3. Map roles before discussing tools

    Name instructional, privacy, technology or security, procurement, school-leadership, and educator perspectives. Keep final authority with the roles designated by the board.

    Evidence to retain: A simple role map showing owner, reviewer, contributor, and decision-maker.

  4. Use anonymous classroom workflow scenarios

    Discuss the teaching decision, permitted inputs, required human review, quality evidence, and stop condition. Do not enter student names, records, or individual work.

    Evidence to retain: One or two class-level scenarios with prohibited-data and human-review notes.

  5. Separate a tool demonstration from due diligence

    A convincing demonstration does not answer questions about purpose, data flow, retention, model or vendor changes, accessibility, incident handling, or exit conditions.

    Evidence to retain: A question log routed to the people authorized to answer it.

  6. Record the decision and its evidence threshold

    Use the same decision language for every scenario: proceed, revise, pilot, pause, or stop. State what evidence would allow the decision to change.

    Evidence to retain: A decision register with rationale, open evidence, owner, and review date.

  7. Assign 30-, 60-, and 90-day owners

    Convert the session into sequenced actions for governance, professional learning, community trust, classroom practice, and measurement.

    Evidence to retain: Named actions, dependencies, due dates, and first proof of completion.

  8. Close the evidence loop

    Retain or publish the activity summary and supporting record required by your board's current process, then schedule the next decision review.

    Evidence to retain: A board-process-aligned record, location, custodian, and review cadence.

90-minute working agenda

  1. 0–10 min — Decision and boundary. Name the intended leadership decision, non-goals, and authority boundaries.
  2. 10–25 min — Current source context. Review the dated provincial, privacy, board, and framework sources that apply to the discussion.
  3. 25–45 min — Anonymous workflow scenarios. Map permitted inputs, human judgment, quality evidence, prohibited data, and stop conditions.
  4. 45–60 min — Due-diligence questions. Route unanswered privacy, security, accessibility, procurement, and vendor questions to authorized reviewers.
  5. 60–75 min — Decision register. Choose proceed, revise, pilot, pause, or stop and identify the evidence that could change the decision.
  6. 75–90 min — Owners and next review. Assign 30-, 60-, and 90-day actions, evidence, owners, and a review date.

When gaps span several owners

Review the fixed-scope AI Readiness Diagnostic Sprint.