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Alabama, United States

Coding and AI classes in Alabama

Can an Alabama student take computer science at school, and what can they add outside it?

Very likely at school: Code.org (2025) counts 351 of 382 Alabama public high schools, or 91.9%, offering computer science in 2024 to 2025, after the Computer Science for Alabama Act (HB216) phased in course offerings. Modern Age Coders adds live online classes for grades K to 12, in a small batch or 1-on-1, from Scratch to Python data projects and AP Computer Science.

Few states changed course as fast. In 2018 to 2019, fewer than half of Alabama's public high schools offered a computer science class; four school years later the published share was 95%. Along the way, the governor's office announced a 2017 advisory council, a national governors' partnership and a 2019 law. This page sets out what those official announcements say, the access and enrollment counts as published, a Birmingham open data project that teaches the least glamorous and most useful skill in data work, and how our live classes run on Central Time for families anywhere in the state.

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Facts last verified 18 October 2026. Teaching is online; no Alabama branch is claimed.

Course picks for Alabama

Where an Alabama student can begin

Four starting points sorted by grade; a teacher checks the fit in a no-cost trial lesson, and only then do you choose.

Game Development for Kids course thumbnail
Grades 2 to 6

Game Development for Kids

Small games built step by step, a natural first entry for the K to 12 Governor's App Challenge.

See the syllabus
 App Development for Teens course thumbnail
Grades 7 to 12

App Development for Teens

Design, build and test a real app, the kind of project a statewide app competition asks students to submit.

See the syllabus
 Data Science for Teens course thumbnail
Grades 8 to 12

Data Science for Teens

Python with pandas on public data, starting with the Birmingham parks cleaning project on this page.

See the syllabus
 AP Computer Science A course thumbnail
Grades 10 to 12

AP Computer Science A

Java, the AP Computer Science A exam format and free-response practice, alongside a school course.

See the syllabus

Browse the course atlas for more than one hundred options and use the coding roadmap to check prerequisites.

The four we are known for

Python, AI, vibe coding and agentic coding

These run underneath everything above. Every one is live and online, placed by ability rather than by age, and the first class is free.

Vibe Coding for Teens course thumbnail
Vibe codingAges 13 to 17

Vibe Coding for Teens

Python, web and AI projects where the learner still owns the thinking.

See the syllabus
 Python Automation Course course thumbnail
Python and AICollege and adult

Python Automation Course

Automate the work you already do, then let AI carry part of it.

See the syllabus
 AI and Machine Learning for Teens course thumbnail
AI and MLAges 14 to 18

AI and Machine Learning for Teens

Train a model, read what it learned, and be able to say why it is wrong.

See the syllabus
 Codex & Claude Code course thumbnail
Agentic codingProfessionals

Codex & Claude Code

Run AI coding agents on real work without losing control of the codebase.

See the syllabus
The state push

How Alabama set out to put computer science in every high school

Alabama's own education department site could not be reached on 17 or 18 October 2026, so this timeline uses the governor's official announcements, read on 18 October 2026.

Computer science milestones announced by the Office of the Governor of Alabama
Date announcedWhat the governor's office said
September 27, 2017Creation of the Governor's Advisory Council for Computer Science Education, to make recommendations for the expansion of computer science education, including teacher training
December 4, 2017Alabama joined the Governors' Partnership for K-12 Computer Science, whose members work toward K-12 standards, teacher professional learning and computer science in every high school
July 26, 2019The Computer Science for Alabama Act (HB216) phases in requirements for public schools to offer courses in computer science
July 26, 2019The same law funds evidence-based professional learning for K-12 computer science teachers and a clearer route to certification
October 23, 2025Students invited to the 2025-2026 Alabama Governor's App Challenge for grades K through 12

An offering law, not a seat law

As the 2019 announcement describes it, HB216 phases in a duty on public schools to offer computer science. It is about whether a course exists, which is exactly what the access figures below measure.

Teachers first

Both the 2017 council and the 2019 law put weight on training. A course on the timetable needs a qualified teacher in the room, and that supply takes years to build in rural districts.

Part of a wider plan

The governor's office filed computer science under its "Strong Start, Strong Finish" education initiative, alongside early reading and workforce training, as one of three focus areas.

What we could not confirm: the current Alabama computer science standards document, its adoption year, and whether a computer science credit now counts toward a diploma. Those live on the department's site, which returned no answer when we checked. We would rather leave a gap than print a rule we have not read at its source.

The published counts

From 49% to 95%: Alabama high schools offering computer science

Access and participation figures from the Code.org (2025) State of AI + CS Education data sheet, plus College Board AP school counts, quoted as published.

Share of Alabama public high schools offering computer science, by school year (Code.org, 2025, Access Percent over the Years tab)
School yearShare offering CS
2018 to 201949%
2019 to 202057%
2020 to 202182%
2021 to 202285%
2022 to 202395%
2023 to 202494.2%
2024 to 202591.9%, which the Most Recent Access Data tab gives as 351 of 382 high schools
Enrollment and AP in Alabama, as published
MeasureAlabamaWhere it comes from
Students enrolled in a CS course, 2023 to 202417,488 of 222,089 high school students, or 7.87%Code.org (2025), Most Recent Participation Data tab; the student total is NCES Fall 2022
Enrollment share, 2020 to 20215.5%Code.org (2025), Participation Percent over the Years tab
Schools with AP exams, 2023306 (251 public)College Board, School Report of AP Exams by State 2023-24
Schools with AP exams, 2024319 (265 public)College Board, School Report of AP Exams by State 2023-24

The jump between 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021, from 57% to 82%, is the largest single-year move in Alabama's series and lines up with the period after HB216 was signed. Correlation is not proof, and the sheet does not say why access dipped slightly after its 2022 to 2023 peak; a few schools closing, merging or changing their course lists could all move a share by a point or two.

The harder number is enrollment. Even with a course in more than nine of ten high schools, 7.87% of high school students were taking one in 2023 to 2024, and the sheet has no 2024 to 2025 enrollment figure for Alabama yet. Access is the door; enrollment is who walks through it. Suggested citation: Code.org (2025). 2025 State of AI + CS Education. Only individual Alabama cells are reproduced here, never the full sheet.

Signature project

Cleaning Birmingham's park list before trusting a single total

The City of Birmingham publishes its parks layer as open data under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. Before any chart, students audit it for what is missing, repeated or unexplained.

What our audit of the Birmingham City Parks layer found (our counts, from one download on 18 October 2026)
CheckWhat we foundWhy it matters
Records in the layer130, matching the service's own count queryA download that silently stops at a page limit gives wrong totals
Distinct park names120Some parks are stored as several pieces
Blank address field7 recordsA blank is honest about being missing
Acreage recorded as 08 records, 6 of them pieces of Rotary TrailA zero can quietly mean "not measured"
Rows repeating a name and acreage10Adding them double counts the same land
Coded columns with no labelsDEDICATED, MANAGED, PARK_TYPEA 10 or a 20 means nothing without the codebook

1. Count before you calculate

Students ask the service how many records exist, then check the download holds all 130. It is a one-line habit that catches truncated files before they mislead anyone.

2. Find the quiet gaps

Blank fields are easy to spot. Zeros are harder: Railroad Park and Henley Park both carry 0 in the acreage column, which is plainly a missing measurement, not an empty park.

3. Decide, then document

Drop repeats, mark zeros as unknown, leave codes uninterpreted. Every choice goes in a short note so another student could repeat the work and get the same answer.

Two totals, both ours, neither official

Summing the acreage column as downloaded gives 3,026.67. Dropping the 10 rows that repeat a name and acreage already counted gives 2,815.34. One record alone holds 1,051.74, about 34.7% of the naive total. These are our calculations from one download, not the City of Birmingham's published park acreage, and the gap between them is the lesson.

Eighteen records with a real, nonzero acreage are under one acre, which raises a fair question for a follow-up: are those pocket parks, or pieces of larger parks stored separately? The data cannot answer it alone. A student who writes that sentence instead of guessing has learned more about data science than one who produced a tidy chart from untidy rows.

A state competition

The Alabama Governor's App Challenge, as announced for 2025 to 2026

A statewide programming competition run through Alabama schools, described in the governor's office announcement of October 23, 2025.

The 2025-2026 Alabama Governor's App Challenge, from the announcement
RuleAs announced
Who can enterStudents in grades K through 12, regardless of coding experience, who meet the eligibility rules
What counts as an entryComputer programs or apps written in any programming language and for any platform
Team sizeIndividuals, or teams of up to three members
RegistrationTeachers register students online by January 19, 2026
School roundParticipating schools pick a winner by grade band and send it to the LEA Technology Coordinator by January 30, 2026

Those dates belong to the 2025 to 2026 cycle and have passed; a new cycle is normally announced through the governor's office and schools in the fall, so check the official challenge site for the current year. The structure is what helps when planning: a school-level round first, so a student needs a teacher who registers them, and an app in any language, so a Scratch game, a Python tool or a mobile app can all qualify. We help students design and build their own project; the entry and every line of it stay theirs, and we are not connected with the challenge or the governor's office.

Class times

Central Time, with a twist on the eastern border

Alabama runs on US Central Time, and our teachers work from India, so the conversion matters.

The official zone

Alabama sits in US Central time; in the IANA tz files its zone is America/Chicago. We confirm every class slot on that clock.

The informal exception

The same database's notes record that Phenix City, Lanett, Smiths Station and Valley, near the state's eastern edge, keep Eastern time by local habit. Families there should tell us which clock they live by.

India time, our arithmetic

By our calculation, India is 10 hours 30 minutes ahead of Central Daylight Time and 11 hours 30 minutes ahead of Central Standard Time. The next two clock changes fall on the first Sunday of November 2026 (November 1) and the second Sunday of March 2027 (March 14).

A bug worth making on purpose

A reminder app that stores "UTC minus 6" for a Birmingham student is right all winter and an hour wrong all summer, and wrong all year for a family in Phenix City that keeps Eastern time. Students fix it by storing the zone name, America/Chicago or America/New_York, and letting the tz database do the work.

Learning ladder

Kindergarten blocks to AP Java, one rung at a time

Grade bands are rough guides; the free lesson places each student.

Grades K to 3

Ideas before syntax

Sequences, loops and simple events in blocks, so a young child can explain what their program does.

Scratch Coding for KidsCoding for Kids
Grades 4 to 7

Games and first apps

Playable games and small apps, the right size for a first statewide app challenge entry.

Game Development for KidsPython and AI for Kids
Grades 8 to 10

Real code, real data

Python, data cleaning on Alabama open data and full apps with a design and testing plan.

Data Science for TeensApp Development for Teens
Grades 11 and 12

AP and machine learning

AP Computer Science A in Java, or models trained and tested on data the student has cleaned themselves.

AP Computer Science AAI and Machine Learning for Teens
Coding and AI

Why an AI assistant will not clean the Birmingham parks data for you

It will clean it, quickly. Whether the result is right is a separate question only a person who understands the data can answer.

Ask an AI tool to total the acreage in the Birmingham parks file and it will happily return a number. It will not, unless told, notice that six pieces of one trail carry zero acres or that one park appears twice. The answer looks finished and is quietly wrong.

Students who have done the audit by hand have a checklist in their heads for every total they meet, whether a classmate or a model produced it. That judgment is what turns AI from a shortcut into a useful assistant, and it is learned by doing the slow version first.

Alabama put a computer science course within reach of nearly every high schooler; the edge goes to the students who learn to check an answer, not just generate one. The longer argument is in our essay on learning to code when AI writes code.

Delivery

From Huntsville to Mobile Bay, the same live classroom

Online teaching makes the distance between Alabama's cities and its rural counties irrelevant.

Your timetable

Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays.

Batch by level

Fifteen to twenty students working at the same stage, drawn from Alabama and other US states, with one teacher leading every session live.

1-on-1 by choice

A single teacher for a single student, useful for AP pacing, competition projects or a student who wants to move faster than any group.

School work stays theirs

Teachers use US grade levels and can connect lessons to a school course or an app challenge, but graded assignments and competition entries are always the student's own.

A free first lesson

One full lesson with a real task, then an honest recommendation of level and course. No card details are taken at that stage.

What you need

A laptop or desktop, a microphone and speakers or a headset, and a steady internet connection. Tablets work for the youngest block coders.

Online only, said plainly

Modern Age Coders teaches live over the internet from India. We have no classroom or office in Alabama and do not claim one, and we are not connected with the Alabama State Department of Education or any district.

Fees

Fees for Alabama families

Each figure below is a US dollar amount, and no extra charges appear later.

First classUSD 0

The opening lesson is free and ends with a suggested level, course and class time.

Group tuitionUSD 100

One month in a level-matched batch of fifteen to twenty students.

Private tuitionUSD 150

One month on the same rhythm with a teacher for one student only.

A household in Montgomery and one in a small Black Belt town are charged identically, in US dollars. Billing begins once the trial lesson is done and you have said yes to a level and a time; holiday weeks and missed sessions are explained on our pricing page.

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Reviews

Families and students on Google

Rated 4.9 across 547 Google reviews. These are real reviews, reproduced as written.

★★★★★

"The one step solution for my son. Modern Age Coders make learning coding so simple that kids love it. The teachers explain complex concepts clearly with practical exercises and interactive content."

Ria Mukherjee

Parent

★★★★★

"Modern Age Coders has been a game-changer for me. I struggled to grasp IT concepts and coding before joining, but their classes transformed everything. I can now confidently write complex programs with ease."

Samriddha Mondal

Student

★★★★★

"One of the most wonderful education centres out there. Education is not limited to school syllabus but focuses on skill development."

Vansh Agarwal

Student

★★★★★

"My child Dhairya is really enjoying the Modern Age Coders classes. This is his first online class and he eagerly looks forward to it. I can already see his improvement, and the teachers are very cooperative."

Sonam Oswal

Parent of Dhairya

★★★★★

"Modern Age Coders have wonderful teachers who teach in a clear, easy and practical way. The teacher boosts students' confidence and inspires them to learn without hesitation."

Sonu Goyal

Parent

★★★★★

"I highly recommend this computer coding class! The teachers are incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about coding."

Ritu Kedia

Parent

Free placement class

Book a free lesson for an Alabama student

Tell us the grade and the goal. A first grader might start with a block puzzle, a ninth grader with the Birmingham parks audit, and an eleventh grader with an AP Computer Science A question.

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FAQ

Alabama questions, answered

The questions Alabama parents and students most often send us.

What does the Computer Science for Alabama Act do?

According to the governor's office in July 2019, HB216 phases in requirements for public schools to offer computer science courses and funds professional learning and certification routes for computer science teachers.

How many Alabama high schools offer computer science?

In the 2025 Code.org data sheet, 351 of 382 Alabama public high schools, or 91.9%, had a computer science course in 2024 to 2025, with the state education agency named as the data source.

How many Alabama students actually take computer science?

The latest published figure is 17,488 of 222,089 high school students, or 7.87%, for 2023 to 2024. The student total behind that share comes from NCES for fall 2022.

Does a computer science credit count toward an Alabama diploma?

We could not confirm the current rule because the Alabama State Department of Education site did not respond when we checked in October 2026. Ask your school counselor for the rule that applies to your student.

Can my child enter the Alabama Governor's App Challenge?

The 2025 to 2026 challenge was open to students in grades K through 12, alone or in teams of up to three, with registration through a teacher. Check the official challenge site for the current cycle.

Will you build my child's app challenge entry?

No. We teach the skills and help a student plan and debug their own project, but the entry is their work. We are not connected with the challenge organizers.

What time zone do you schedule Alabama classes in?

Central Time, America/Chicago. Families in the few eastern border towns that keep Eastern time by habit should tell us, and we will confirm times on their clock.

When can classes take place?

Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays.

Do you teach in person anywhere in Alabama?

No. Every class is live online with a teacher in India, and we do not claim any Alabama location. A computer, sound and a reliable connection are all a student needs.

Where are the prices?

The fees section of this page lists the free first lesson, the monthly batch and the monthly 1-on-1 option, all in US dollars, with billing only after the free lesson.

Explore the United States

More reading for Alabama students and parents

High schoolers comparing options can read coding classes for high school students and AP Computer Science A classes. Younger builders preparing an app challenge entry may like how to make a video game for kids, and competitive students can scan coding competitions for high school students.

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