OpenAI has expanded its free ChatGPT for Teachers program to 55 additional school systems across 20 states, bringing the initiative to more than 100,000 additional educators and staff.
The expansion increases OpenAI’s total partnerships to over 100 K-12 organizations spanning 30 states, providing free access and training to more than 300,000 educators and staff. The new group includes one in five of the 20 largest U.S. public school districts. The program, introduced in 2025, initially reached nearly 150,000 teachers and staff.
ChatGPT for Teachers remains free for verified U.S. K-12 educators through June 2028 and is restricted to administrators, faculty, and educators. The initiative operates under data privacy agreements with 16 states through the Student Data Privacy Consortium, covering Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. California is covered by a separate agreement. Data shared in a ChatGPT for Teachers workspace is not used to train OpenAI’s models by default.
Between January 1 and July 16, educators sent over 1.9 million messages related to time-saving tasks, according to a privacy-preserving OpenAI analysis. Of these, 900,000 messages concerned report cards and progress reports, 800,000 involved lesson planning, and more than 100,000 each addressed substitute plans and teacher-evaluation materials.
OpenAI also conducted AI Skills Jams this summer through OpenAI Academy in partnership with the Walton Family Foundation, involving more than 1,600 teachers, administrators, and district leaders. A survey found 93% of participants left with actionable takeaways, and 96% planned to apply what they learned within 30 days. Additionally, OpenAI and the American Federation of Teachers launched a five-year National Academy for AI Instruction to equip 400,000 K-12 educators with AI skills.
