As soon as Cristo Rey St. Martin College Prep social studies teacher Jon Taus learned ChatGPT was making its platform available to the general public, he knew the impact on the school community from artificial intelligence (AI) would be enormous.

Quickly trying out the ChatGPT technology, Taus said what he quickly learned was more than he anticipated. He realized he could help students learn more and write better. They could also have a virtual conversation with historical figures like George Washington.

“I fed in the directions for what I wanted, and quickly, I have an A+ answer,” Taus said. “I realized this is going to change everything. It’s only going to get better. I knew it was going to help with everything.”

Before Taus discovered the benefits of AI, he spent 100% of his time at Cristo Rey teaching American history and American government. Now he is also the school’s director of AI integration, and it is approximately 50% of his job.

Cristo Rey St. Martin College Prep is currently in its third year of using AI as an integral part of both the school curriculum in Waukegan and its work-study program, where many of the students are using it in their jobs in the community where the school places them.

Delving into AI during the 2022-2023 school year, Taus found more and more ways his history and government students could use it. Whether it was having virtual conversations with people from history or becoming better writers, it had a variety of uses.

Preston Kendall, Cristo Rey’s president, said the school’s AI program was put in the budget for the 2023-2024 school year. It has had a place there every year since. Teachers use it to more efficiently prepare lesson plans, as well as incorporate it into their curriculum.

In his role overseeing the AI program at Cristo Rey, Taus conducts professional development with his colleagues on a regular basis. He also continues to explore new ways to integrate AI into his own lesson plans, as well as letting other instructors know to do so.

“I use AI to make my own lesson plan better,” Taus said. “It helps me be more analytic.”

A unique element of Cristo Rey is its work-study program. Kendall said students are in class four days a week. One day is spent in a paid job at a business, or other organization in the community, which helps pay for their education and gets them used to a workplace environment.

Anthony Rivas is in his junior year at Cristo Rey. AI has been part of his academic and work life since he started there as a freshman. AI is not only helpful to his schoolwork, but it has also become part of his workday once a week at AbbVie.

“They set some goals for how they want us to use AI,” Rivas said. “AI helps with my job at AbbVie. We’re taught how to embrace it and use it properly. It’s important to use it in the proper way. I’m able to translate what I do at school into the workplace.”

Maintaining academic integrity is also an important part of the program. The object is using AI to help a student write a better paper, not do the work for the student. Kendall said the proper use is stressed.

“We work with the students on using AI as a tool,” Kendall said. “We teach the students to use it as a coach on how they can better construct a paper. The purpose of a coach is to make them better.”

John Geis, the fine arts teacher at Cristo Rey, said he gave the students an art project to create. They wrote a short paragraph about any subject in their head. Then it was time for some free-form art. When it was done, AI gave each student a college-level critique of their work.

“It really made an impression on the students,” Geis said. “They were stunned to see how accurate it was compared to what they wrote on the back of their artwork.”

An important part of what Taus has done is creating a prompt library. The more precise the prompt fed to AI, the better the response will be. It benefits both the students and their teachers. AI can be prompted to “play the devil’s advocate.”

As sophisticated as AI has become, Taus said it is nothing without humans to feed it.

“There must be a human to give AI input, and there must be a human to verify the response,” Taus said.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/18/cristo-rey-st-martin-college-prep-ai/