Raina Retired — Bend-La Pine Schools' Parent Backlash Against a Companion-Style AI Chatbot

MagicSchool AI deployed a companion-style chatbot named Raina — marketed to students as a "new best friend" — across partner districts including Bend-La Pine Schools in Oregon, embedded directly on student iPads without a companion-specific parental notice.
On 10 February 2026, a petition signed by more than 1,100 parents and community members representing over 1,500 students, spanning every grade and school in the district, was presented to the school board. It demanded removal of AI chatbots pending a formal AI-literacy curriculum, screen-time reporting access, an opt-out process, a ban on screens as rewards, and a public list of every ed-tech and AI contract with its data-collection practices.
MagicSchool AI retired the Raina persona on 28 January 2026, replacing it with a neutral, teacher-facing AI assistant. In April 2026 the Bend-La Pine board passed a resolution requiring formal review of all classroom technology and grade-appropriate use standards going forward.
The case is a cautionary one: no independent study of Raina's learning impact was published before its classroom rollout, and the reversal came from parent pressure rather than any pre-deployment evaluation — a gap the district's new review policy is meant to close for future tools.

Read the full analysis: https://www.opb.org/article/2026/02/13/bend-parents-protest-ai-chatbot-tech-company-schools/