Compass AI (Atlas K-12)
An AI assistant that never leaves your server
Compass is the assistant built into Atlas K-12. It helps staff find evidence-based strategies and use the platform. It runs a language model on the district's own server; nothing a staff member asks is sent to an outside AI company.
Last reviewed: September 2026
Direct answers
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Where does the AI model run? | On your district's Atlas K-12 server, inside the application process, from a model file stored on that server's disk. |
| Does it run locally? | Yes. Inference happens on your hardware. Compass keeps working with the server disconnected from the internet. |
| Do prompts leave the institution? | No. The main application blocks outbound network connections in software, and Compass makes none. |
| Is student information sent to OpenAI? | No. |
| Is student information sent to Anthropic? | No. |
| Is student information sent to Google? | No. |
| Does any third-party AI API receive information? | No. Atlas K-12 contains no client for any hosted AI service, and an automated test confirms that common AI API hosts are blocked. |
| Is student data used to train the model? | No. The model is not trained or fine-tuned on your data. Compass improves by retrieving answers your staff have reviewed and approved, not by learning from student records. |
| What outbound connections does Compass need? | None. Model files are placed on the server during installation (by USB for air-gapped districts). Runtime model downloads are off by default. |
What Compass can see
- Your district's strategy library, the shared technique catalog, and built-in help articles.
- Answers that your district's reviewers have approved.
- On a student's page, the September 2026 release lets Compass consider that student's tiers, active plans, recent progress, and circumstances, only when the staff member is permitted to view that student. Student names are not included in what the model receives, and answers about a specific student are never reused for anyone else.
- Compass does not browse the internet and cannot see other districts' data.
How permissions constrain it
- Every Compass request requires a signed-in staff account. The district is determined on the server, not by the browser.
- Student context is added only if the staff member already has permission to view that student in Atlas K-12. Compass cannot reveal what the user could not already open.
- Diagnostic details about the model are shown only to administrators and MTSS Coordinators.
- Questions are limited to 1,000 characters.
What is stored
- Conversations are kept in the staff member's own browser, separately for each user, and cleared at sign-out. They are not written to the server database or the audit log.
- Feedback: when a staff member submits a correction or rates an answer as unhelpful, the question, the answer, the correction, the submitter, and the district are saved on your server for review. Teacher and counselor corrections wait in a review queue for an administrator or MTSS Coordinator; approved corrections improve future answers. Reviewers can edit or delete them, and review actions are audit-logged. There is no automatic deletion schedule for feedback today.
- Logs: the application logs model loading and errors, not the text of questions or answers.
- A short-lived answer cache is kept in memory only, separated by district, and cleared when the server restarts or a correction is approved.
Student safety
- When a staff member describes a student who may hurt themselves, is being hurt, is threatening someone, or is having a medical emergency, Compass shows fixed, reviewed next steps (bring in your counselor or administrator, follow your district protocol, call 911 in an emergency, 988 for suicide and crisis support, and mandated reporting) instead of a generated answer.
- A "Student in danger right now?" button on every page with Compass opens those steps immediately.
- Compass declines clinical, medical, and legal advice, requests to rank students or staff, and attempts to override its instructions. These limits are enforced by its instructions and routing, not by a separate filter, so staff should treat every answer as a starting point for professional judgment.
Hardware
Compass has three tiers so a district can match the model to the hardware it has. A capable CPU with AVX2 support (Intel 10th generation or AMD Ryzen 3000 or newer) is required; Standard and Pro need an SSD.
| Tier | CPU | Memory | Disk | GPU |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lite | Dual-core minimum; 6 cores recommended | 8 GB minimum; 16 GB recommended | 10 GB free; 30 GB SSD recommended | Not needed |
| Standard | Quad-core minimum; 12 to 16 cores recommended | 32 GB minimum; up to 64 GB recommended | 30 GB free; 60 GB NVMe recommended | Optional (8 GB or more speeds answers 2 to 3 times) |
| Pro | 8 server-class cores minimum; 16 or more recommended | 64 GB minimum; 128 GB recommended | 100 GB NVMe minimum; 500 GB recommended | NVIDIA with 24 GB or more of video memory required |
Without a model file, Compass runs in a setup mode that returns the best-matching strategy or help article, and every other Atlas K-12 feature keeps working. See System requirements.
Limitations to know
- Staff can type anything into Compass, including a student's name. Nothing typed leaves the server, but the text is not automatically removed or masked.
- Because conversations are kept in the browser until sign-out, staff on shared computers should sign out when finished.
- Like any language model, Compass can be wrong. Staff should check suggestions against the strategy library and their own professional judgment.
Do not take our word for it. Test it yourself. Install AtlasOA or Atlas K-12 on a machine your institution controls, use sample or non-production data, and let your own people decide.