---
title: "Coding Classes in Virginia | Live Online, Ages 6 to 67"
description: "Live online coding and maths for Virginia students aged 6 to 67. Virginia requires computer science K-12, but integration is the weakest way to deliver it."
canonical: https://learn.modernagecoders.com/coding-classes-in-virginia
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---
> Live online coding and maths for Virginia students aged 6 to 67. Virginia requires computer science K-12, but integration is the weakest way to deliver it.

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Virginia / Live online

# Virginia required computer science first, then put it everywhere and nowhere.

The short answer

Virginia was the first state in the country to require computer science at every K-12 level. From Kindergarten to Grade 8 it is delivered inside other subjects, with no lesson of its own and no test to confirm it happened. Modern Age Coders teaches it as an actual subject, live, for ages 6 to 67, in batches of five to eight or privately, at USD 100 and USD 150 a month.

In November 2017 Virginia did something no other state had done: it made computer science a requirement for every child, not an elective for the interested ones. That deserves credit and it is genuinely ahead of most of the country. The delivery model, though, is the weakest one available. In Kindergarten through Grade 8 the standards are addressed within existing content areas. Middle and high school get stand-alone electives, but the eight years underneath them do not.

A subject with no timetable slot, no specialist teacher and no assessment depends entirely on individual goodwill. Sometimes that works beautifully. When it does not, nothing anywhere records the fact. Virginia sits inside our wider [United States](/coding-classes-in-united-states) coverage.

Book the free first classWhy integration fails quietly

No card. No obligation. We call, we do not spam.

10,000+students taught4.9across 547 Google reviews2020teaching since25+countries6 to 67ages taught5 to 8students per groupCourses for Virginia

## What Virginia families actually book

The first two matter most here, because Kindergarten to Grade 8 is exactly where the integrated model leaves the biggest hole. The last two are for students heading toward a verified credit and an Advanced Studies Diploma.

[![Coding in blocks course thumbnail](/images/kids-coding.webp)  Ages 6 to 10 Coding in blocks An actual lesson, every week, in the years Virginia leaves to integration. See the syllabus](/courses/kids-coding-blocks-masterclass)[![Python and AI course thumbnail](/images/python-kids.webp)  Ages 11 to 13 Python and AI Where a middle schooler goes when one elective is the whole offering. See the syllabus](/courses/python-ai-kids-masterclass)[![AP Computer Science A course thumbnail](/images/ap-computer-science-a.webp)  Ages 14 to 18 AP Computer Science A Java, the exam unit structure, and the free response questions that decide the grade. See the syllabus](/courses/ap-computer-science-a-java-exam-prep-course)[![High school mathematics course thumbnail](/images/high-school-maths.webp)  Ages 14 to 18 High school mathematics Verified credits are SOL-tested, and the maths ones are where students lose them. See the syllabus](/courses/complete-high-school-mathematics-mastery)

That is four of more than a hundred. The rest, sorted by age and subject, sit on the [course atlas](/course-atlas), and the order we teach them in is on the [coding roadmap](/coding-roadmap).

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](/images/vibe-coding-teens.webp)Vibe codingAges 13 to 17Vibe Coding for TeensPython, web and AI projects where the learner still owns the thinking.See the syllabus](/courses/vibe-coding-for-teens-python-web-ai-projects-course)[![Python AI Automation course thumbnail](/images/python-automation-ai-college.webp)Python and AICollege and adultPython AI AutomationAutomate the work you already do, then let AI carry part of it.See the syllabus](/courses/python-ai-automation-masterclass-college)[![AI and Machine Learning for Teens course thumbnail](/images/ai-ml-teens.webp)AI and MLAges 14 to 18AI and Machine Learning for TeensTrain a model, read what it learned, and be able to say why it is wrong.See the syllabus](/courses/ai-ml-masterclass-teens)[![Codex and Claude Code course thumbnail](/images/codex-claude-code-adults.webp)Agentic codingProfessionalsCodex and Claude CodeRun AI coding agents on real work without losing control of the codebase.See the syllabus](/courses/codex-and-claude-code-ai-coding-agents-masterclass-for-adults-professionals)2017 Computer Science Standards of Learning

## The delivery model, and why it fails without anybody noticing

Virginia adopted the Computer Science Standards of Learning in November 2017, to be taught from the 2019 to 2020 academic year, becoming the first state to require the subject at all K-12 levels. The structure is deliberate.

| Band | How computer science is delivered | What checks it happened |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kindergarten to Grade 8 | Addressed within existing content areas, including language arts and history | Nothing specific |
| Middle school | Stand-alone electives | Course completion, if the student chooses it |
| High school | Stand-alone electives | Course completion, and an exam where one exists |

Now compare that with how the other states we teach in handle the same problem. New Jersey obliges every high school to offer a course. Illinois legislates an entitlement to be offered one. Texas lets computer science substitute for a graduation requirement, which forces schools to staff it. Each of those creates a thing that visibly exists or visibly does not.

Integration creates neither. There is no period on a timetable, no teacher whose job it is, and no end-of-course test whose absence would be noticed. A fifth-grade teacher already carrying reading, writing, mathematics, science and history is asked to also deliver computer science standards inside those subjects, usually without having studied the material themselves.

We are not saying it never works

Where a school has a teacher who is genuinely interested, integration produces some of the best elementary computer science anywhere, because the ideas arrive attached to real content instead of in a vacuum. That is the honest case for the model and it is a strong one. The problem is variance, not ceiling.

What follows for a parent is a practical question rather than a political one: is it happening in your child's classroom? Ask something specific. Not whether the school teaches computer science, which will always get a yes, but which lesson in the last month contained it, what the child made, and who planned it. A school doing this well answers in one breath. A school that cannot answer is not being evasive; it simply has nothing to point at, and that is the information you needed.

Integrated, versus taught

## What the standard asks for, and what a real lesson looks like

On the left, the kind of thing the Virginia standards expect a child to meet inside another subject. On the right, what we do with the same idea when it has an hour of its own and a teacher who writes code.

Integrated

Algorithms met as a sequence of steps in a history or language arts activity, often unplugged and without a computer.

Unplugged is a fine start and a poor finish. A student writes the sequence, runs it, watches it fail, and fixes it, which is the part that cannot be simulated on paper. See [Coding in Blocks](/courses/kids-coding-blocks-masterclass).

Integrated

Data and analysis touched inside a science or mathematics unit, using a small tidy dataset prepared for the lesson.

Real data from Virginia, deliberately containing a trap, described further down this page. Tidy data teaches tidiness, not analysis. See [Data Science for Teens](/courses/data-science-course-for-teens-python-data).

Integrated

Impacts of computing discussed as a topic, usually once, usually as a warning.

Given time to become an actual argument, with a student allowed to reach a conclusion we did not hand them. Most of the interesting cases are about AI tools and have no comfortable answer. See [AI Tools Mastery for Teens](/courses/teens-ai-tools-mastery-course).

Elective, if chosen

One stand-alone computer science elective in middle or high school, competing against every other elective.

A ladder rather than a single rung, so finishing one thing is followed by starting the next. See [Python Complete Masterclass for Teens](/courses/python-complete-masterclass-teens).

Rarely anywhere

Databases, backend work and the parts of the subject that Virginia's own economy runs on.

Taught explicitly, because a state this full of data infrastructure produces surprisingly few teenagers who have written a query. See [MySQL for Teens](/courses/mysql-mastery-for-teens).

Graduation

## Standard credits, verified credits, and the 5 C's

Virginia counts two different kinds of credit, and families regularly discover the difference too late. A standard credit is earned by passing the course. A verified credit needs the course *and* a pass in the associated end-of-course Standards of Learning test, or another assessment approved by the Board of Education.

| Diploma | Standard credits | Verified credits |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Standard Diploma | At least 22 | 5 |
| Advanced Studies Diploma | At least 26 | 5 |

The verified credits are the ones that bite, because they cannot be recovered by effort in class alone. A student who understood the material all year and then underperforms in one end-of-course test has a problem that attendance does not fix. Mathematics is where this happens most often, which is the unglamorous reason our mathematics track exists alongside the coding rather than as a separate upsell.

Above the credit counting sits the Profile of a Virginia Graduate, which requires students to acquire and demonstrate foundational skills in Virginia's 5 C's: critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, communication, and citizenship. Every one of those is easier to demonstrate with something built than with something revised. A student who can hand somebody a working program, explain the decisions inside it, and defend the ones that were arguable has evidence for four of the five without needing a separate exercise.

Placement

## Where a Virginia learner joins

Weighted toward the early years, because that is where the integrated model leaves the most ground uncovered, and toward data and backend work at the top, because that is what the commonwealth actually runs on.

### Elementary

Ages 6 to 10

- [Coding in blocks](/courses/kids-coding-blocks-masterclass)
- [Roblox and Lua](/courses/roblox-game-coding-for-kids-lua-course)
- [Abacus mental maths](/courses/abacus-mental-maths-course-for-kids)
- [Elementary mathematics](/courses/elementary-mathematics-complete-masterclass)

### Middle school

Ages 11 to 13

- [Python and AI](/courses/python-ai-kids-masterclass)
- [Scratch, in depth](/courses/scratch-programming-complete-course)
- [Hackathon preparation](/courses/hackathon-prep-for-teens-coding-ai-build-innovate-win-course)
- [Middle school maths](/courses/comprehensive-middle-school-mathematics-mastery)

### High school

Ages 14 to 18

- [AP Computer Science A](/courses/ap-computer-science-a-java-exam-prep-course)
- [MySQL for teens](/courses/mysql-mastery-for-teens)
- [Full stack web development](/courses/full-stack-web-development-teens-masterclass)
- [High school maths](/courses/complete-high-school-mathematics-mastery)

### College and adult

18 to 67

- [Databases, complete](/courses/mysql-database-complete-masterclass-college)
- [Django and Flask](/courses/python-web-development-django-flask-course)
- [Java, college level](/courses/complete-java-programming-masterclass-college)
- [College mathematics](/courses/college-mathematics-complete-masterclass)

The whole catalogue is on the [course atlas](/course-atlas), and the method is described on [how we teach](/how-we-teach).

Virginia data project

## The programme that works even when it does nothing

Virginia's student project is built on a mistake that has justified more useless spending, across more fields, than any other in statistics. It is worked here on the commonwealth's own published school data, and the punchline arrives before the student has been told anything.

Source: Virginia School Quality ProfilesLevel: Grade 9 and upConcept: Data and analysis

The Virginia Department of Education publishes Standards of Learning pass rates for every school, division and subject, with three years of results available together. That last detail is what makes the project possible, because you need a before and an after.

Set the student a question that sounds like real policy work. Suppose a support programme were targeted at the lowest-performing schools in the state. How would you tell whether it worked?

Almost everybody answers the same way: compare those schools before and after. So the student does exactly that, using the real data and no intervention at all. They take the schools in the bottom tenth in the first year and look at where the same schools sit in the second year.

They go up.

The trap

Any single year's score is partly durable quality and partly luck: which children happened to be in that cohort, who was ill on the day, how a small school's numbers swing on a handful of pupils. Select the schools with the lowest scores and you have selected, among other things, the ones that had the worst luck. Luck does not repeat. So the group rises next year with no help from anybody. Select the top tenth instead and they fall. This is regression to the mean, and it means a programme aimed at the worst performers will show improvement even if the programme is an empty room.

Once a student has produced that result with their own hands, on data about their own state, the idea sticks in a way no worked example achieves. And the follow-up question is the valuable one: given that the naive comparison is worthless, what would actually settle it? They arrive, usually with some prompting, at the answer the field arrived at: you need a comparison group of similar schools that did not get the programme, and preferably the assignment should not have been made on the basis of the score you are about to measure.

That is where a fourteen year old meets the reason controlled trials exist, not as vocabulary but as the only way out of a problem they personally just fell into. It transfers to medicine, to sports form, to a company's worst-performing sales region, and to every headline about a school turnaround.

| Step | What the student does | What it teaches |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Design | Write down how they would evaluate the imaginary programme, before touching data | Commit to a method you can be wrong about |
| Select | Take the bottom tenth of schools in year one | Selection on an extreme is the whole mechanism |
| Follow | Track the same schools into year two, with no intervention anywhere | The effect appears out of nothing |
| Mirror | Repeat with the top tenth and watch them fall | Symmetry proves it is not about the schools |
| Repair | Propose a design that would give a real answer | Comparison groups exist for a reason |

A note we make explicitly to students: this exercise is about statistics, not about judging schools or the people in them. The whole point is that the movement in the numbers is not telling you about quality at all, which is precisely why treating it as though it were is so damaging.

Students pull the current published files themselves rather than working from figures printed here. The habits carry into [statistics and probability](/courses/statistics-probability-maths-course) and, for those who want to build models rather than evaluate programmes, [AI and machine learning in the USA](/ai-and-machine-learning-classes-in-usa). Finished work sits in the [student labs](/student-labs).

The arrangement

## What a Virginia family is buying

### A lesson that exists

The plainest thing we sell in this state. A fixed hour, twice a week, with a teacher whose job is this subject and nothing else.

### A teacher who writes code

Not a generalist asked to cover computer science inside another subject. That distinction is the whole argument on this page.

### Five to eight, one face

Groups stay small and keep the same teacher every week. One to one where a student needs the full hour to themselves.

### Evidence for the 5 C's

Every course ends in something built and defended, which is exactly the shape the Profile of a Virginia Graduate asks a student to demonstrate.

### Maths on the same track

Verified credits are SOL-tested and mathematics is where they are most often lost, so it runs beside the coding with the same teacher.

### Nothing to install

Everything happens in a browser tab, which matters on a school-issued machine that will not let anybody install anything.

Fees

## Monthly, in US dollars

No enrolment charge, nothing to buy, no minimum term.

Group$100per month, 8 classes

Five to eight learners with one consistent teacher. Where most Virginia families begin.

Private$150per month, 8 classes

One learner setting the pace. Most often chosen for AP preparation or to rescue a verified credit.

Pauses, plan changes and missed classes are covered on the [pricing page](/pricing).

Reviews

## What families say

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

More, with photographs and student work, on the [wall of love](/love).

Questions

## Virginia questions, answered plainly

### Is computer science really required in Virginia schools?

Yes, and Virginia got there first. In November 2017 it became the first state in the country to require computer science instruction at all K-12 levels, adopting the Computer Science Standards of Learning, to be taught from the 2019 to 2020 academic year. The important detail is how. In Kindergarten through Grade 8 the content is addressed within existing subjects rather than as its own class. In middle and high school it appears as stand-alone electives.

### If it is integrated into other subjects, what is the problem?

Integration is the most fragile way to deliver anything. There is no dedicated lesson, no dedicated teacher, and no end-of-course test to confirm it happened. Whether your child actually meets computer science between Kindergarten and Grade 8 comes down to individual teachers who mostly did not train in it, inside subjects that already have their own crowded requirements. Where integration is done well it is genuinely good. Where it is not, nothing shows up in any report.

### How can I tell whether my child is getting it?

Ask for something specific rather than something general. Not whether the school teaches computer science, which will always get a yes, but which lesson in the last month contained it, what the child produced, and who planned that lesson. A school doing it properly can answer immediately. A school that cannot answer is not lying to you, it simply has nothing to point at, which is your answer.

### What is the difference between standard credits and verified credits?

A standard credit is earned by passing the course. A verified credit needs the course plus a pass in the associated end-of-course Standards of Learning test or another Board-approved assessment. A Standard Diploma requires at least 22 standard credits and 5 verified credits. An Advanced Studies Diploma requires at least 26 standard credits and the same 5 verified credits.

### What is the Profile of a Virginia Graduate?

It is the framework that sits above the credit counting, requiring students to acquire and demonstrate foundational skills in Virginia's 5 C's: critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, communication, and citizenship. Every one of those is easier to demonstrate with something built than with something revised, which is why our courses end in a project a student can be questioned about.

### Do you teach across Virginia or only near Washington?

The whole commonwealth. Live video makes Loudoun, Fairfax, Arlington, Richmond, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Charlottesville identical to us, and none of them a drive. What a student needs is a laptop or desktop, a way to be heard, and a connection that holds a call. There is nothing to install and nothing shipped.

### What time do classes run on Eastern Time?

Around your week rather than ours. Weekend slots are the simplest to arrange on Eastern Time, and weekday slots are settled one family at a time. Everything is confirmed on the demo call before any payment, so nobody agrees to a slot in principle and then discovers it collides with something that cannot move.

### What are the fees for a Virginia family?

USD 100 a month for a group of five to eight, or USD 150 a month for private tuition. Both run two classes a week, eight a month. Nothing is charged to enrol, there is nothing to buy, and there is no minimum term, so any month can be the last one. The opening class is free.

### Which ages do you take, and how big is a class?

Six to sixty-seven, placed by what a learner can demonstrate rather than by year group. Groups hold five to eight with one teacher who stays with them week after week, or one to one where a student needs the whole hour. Teachers are not rotated between sessions, because a teacher who remembers last week's sticking point starts the lesson somewhere useful.

### How does a family start?

Take the free opening class. It is taught rather than sold: a teacher gives the student real work, watches how they handle it, then recommends a level. If the honest recommendation is to wait, or that somebody else is a better fit, you will hear that on the call rather than after paying.

Book a free class

## Taught, not sold

Tell us the grade and what the school has actually covered. A teacher runs a real opening class, finds the genuine starting point, and recommends a level. If we are not right for your child, that is what you will hear on the call.

You can also use the [contact page](/contact), or read [about us](/about) first.

Nearby

## Other places we teach

[United States](/coding-classes-in-united-states)[New Jersey](/coding-classes-in-new-jersey)[New York](/coding-classes-in-new-york)[Illinois](/coding-classes-in-illinois)[Georgia](/coding-classes-in-georgia)[Texas](/coding-classes-in-texas)[AI and machine learning, USA](/ai-and-machine-learning-classes-in-usa)

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