Tenet·Feature Guides 01 · Plain-English Rule Enforcement ← All guides
Guide 01 · The Defining Feature

Plain-English Rule Enforcement

A district or a teacher writes how AI should behave in normal sentences. Tenet turns those sentences into enforced behavior on every supported AI platform, invisibly to the student, and keeps them in force for the whole conversation.

District-wide rules: Basic Teacher-by-teacher rules: Pro
↓ Download the one-pager (PDF)
What it is

Policy you can type, not program

Most AI controls give you a blunt switch: allow or block. Tenet gives you a dial you set with words. You write something a colleague would understand, for example “Be a Socratic tutor. Give hints, not answers. Never write the essay.” and Tenet makes the AI actually behave that way. There is no policy language to learn, no scripting, and no separate setup for each AI tool.

Why it matters

The gap between “allowed” and “useful”

A district can allow ChatGPT, but allowing it does nothing to stop it from writing a student's essay outright. Blocking it entirely just sends students to their phones. The real need is in the middle: let students use AI, but on the school's terms. Until now that meant either trusting every student to self-police, or asking IT to build brittle, per-platform rules that break the moment a vendor changes its interface.

Plain-English rules collapse that work to a sentence. And because each teacher can write their own, the same district can run a strict exam-week classroom and an exploratory research classroom at the same time, without a meeting, a ticket, or a policy rewrite.

Why it sells
“You describe the classroom you want in plain English, and Tenet makes every AI platform behave that way, for every teacher, automatically.”
How it works

From a sentence to enforced behavior

1 · Write the rule
district or teacher, in plain English
2 · Tenet injects it
added to the conversation on the platform, on the device
3 · Kept in force
re-applied as the chat continues, so the AI cannot drift
4 · Student sees normal AI
the instructions are invisible to them

The same rule works whether the student opens ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Tenet has a purpose-built adapter for each supported platform, so one rule set covers all of them.

District rules set the floor

The district writes guardrails every student gets, on every platform. This is included free in Basic.

Teacher rules add to the floor, never weaken it

With Pro, each teacher writes rules for their own class. Teacher rules are layered on top of the district baseline. A teacher can be stricter, but cannot remove a district guardrail.

Rules are subject-aware and grade-aware

Tenet recognizes the subject of a class and can tailor instructions accordingly, and supports grade-level wording so a third-grade prompt reads differently from a college-prep one.

They stay in force

Rules are re-applied periodically during a long conversation, so the AI does not quietly slide back into doing the work a few messages later.

In practice

One district, three very different classrooms

The same student, governed differently by class

District baseline (Basic): “Allow ChatGPT and Gemini for research. Never let the AI write a full essay. Always tell students to cite their sources.”

Mr. Rivera, English 10 (Pro): “Be a Socratic tutor. Ask what they have tried first. Give hints, not answers. Do not write paragraphs for them.”

Ms. Chen, Chemistry (Pro): “Help with concepts and practice problems. Do not give final answers to graded lab questions.”

Mr. Rivera and Ms. Chen never talk to IT. Each writes a few sentences in their dashboard, and their class gets exactly the AI behavior they want. That is the teacher-by-teacher control no filter offers.

Configuration

What the admin and the teacher actually do

Admin, once

In the district dashboard, write the district-wide rules and choose which AI platforms are approved. This is the floor for everyone and takes a few minutes.

Teacher, about five minutes

Open the class, write the rules like a short lesson plan (what the AI should know, the rules it must follow, what it should do), and save. A handy frame is Information, Rules, Actions. No training required.

Pro also adds class modes for instant control without rewriting prompts: Standard (your rules apply), Ultimate Focus (only whitelisted sites, good for test prep), and Block All AI (for exams and in-class writing). Plus bell-schedule awareness, so rules can change automatically by period, and take-home rules by subject.

Basic vs Pro

Where the line is

Basic, free
  • District-wide plain-English rules
  • Enforced across all 7 supported AI platforms
  • Approved-AI allowlist
Pro
  • Teacher-by-teacher and per-class rules
  • Class modes: Standard, Ultimate Focus, Block All AI
  • Bell-schedule and A/B awareness, take-home rules by subject
  • Live compliance monitoring that checks the conversation against the rules

This split is also the upsell. A district writes its rules for free, teachers see the dashboard, and the first teacher who wants rules for their own class is the trigger to talk about Pro.

Who it sells to

Lead with the right person

Director of Curriculum

Pedagogy becomes enforceable. The AI coaches instead of answering, and you can track teacher-reported reductions in answer-dumping.

Teacher

You define learning quality in your own words. It is the difference between AI gave the answer and AI coached the thinking, and setup takes five minutes.

Superintendent

Classroom expectations become explicit and visible instead of a hope that students behave.

Principal

You can see which classrooms have set up their rules and which have not, and nudge consistency across the building.

Common questions

FAQ

Can teachers really do this without IT?
Yes. A teacher types a few sentences and saves. It applies only to their class, on every supported platform, with no training and no ticket.
Does the student see the rules?
No. The instructions are added behind the scenes. The student just experiences an AI that behaves the way the teacher intended.
What if the student switches from ChatGPT to Gemini mid-task?
The same rules follow them. Tenet enforces the rule set on each supported platform, so there is no gap to exploit.
What stops the AI from ignoring the instructions over a long chat?
Two things. The rules are re-applied as the conversation continues, and in Pro the live compliance monitor reads the actual conversation against the teacher's rules and can step in if the AI drifts.
Honest limits

Say this before they ask

Where to set expectations

  • Enforcement applies on the 7 supported platforms. A brand-new AI site is governed once an adapter exists, and unapproved tools are simply blocked in the meantime.
  • Rule-following depends in part on the underlying AI model. The re-application cadence and the Pro compliance monitor are what keep behavior on track over long sessions.
  • Per-class, teacher-by-teacher rules are a Pro capability. Basic gives the district-wide rule set.
Keep reading

Related guides