Alamance-Burlington school officials are launching a new Artificial Intelligence course at Turrentine Middle School that will give students hands-on training in AI, beginning with the upcoming 2026-27 school year.
Turrentine students who successfully complete the new introductory “Artificial Intelligence I” course will be able to earn credit toward their high school graduation and an “industry-recognized credential,” certifying their mastery of the skill, based on a presentation that school board members heard during their latest semi-monthly meeting.
The credit that students at Turrentine earn in “Artificial Intelligence I” will also count toward a new statewide requirement for all North Carolina public school students to pass a computer science course in order to graduate from high school.
The addition of computer science to the state’s Standard Course of Study was signed into law in September 2023 and takes effect with the upcoming, 2026-27 school year, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction (DPI). The 2023 law also required all N.C. public school systems to offer computer science as an elective in middle school, starting with the current 2025-26 school year, according to DPI.
The AI program at Turrentine, which ABSS director of Career and Technical Education Terri Drummond described last week as a pilot, will also provide students with an opportunity to earn an “industry-recognized credential” in the field, which is a certificate documenting a student’s mastery.
Students who enroll in the AI course will learn: the foundations of AI; prompt engineering; ethical use of AI; “privacy and bias awareness”; and practical applications of generative AI in business, healthcare, engineering, media, and other industries, Drummond said.
ABSS officials came up with the idea to offer the AI course in middle school in order to meet the state’s new computer science requirement for graduation without overwhelming high school Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers, Drummond explained to The Alamance News after the school board’s latest work session.
“ABSS saw an opportunity to pilot an innovative course that would prepare students for future careers and emerging technologies before entering high school,” Drummond told the newspaper.
Turrentine Middle School was selected to pilot the AI course “based on several factors, including administrative support, instructor familiarity with the content, readiness to implement an innovative program, and the school’s commitment to expanding [Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, or STEM courses] and career-focused opportunities for students,” Drummond elaborated.
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A 2024 report commissioned by N.C A&T State University projected that the number of jobs in AI to grow three times faster than any other employment sector – with approximately 20,000 jobs in the field expected to be created in N.C. by 2030. At the time the report was published, the state ranked second only to Florida (among Southeastern states) for the percentages of businesses that have integrated AI to augment their operations, according to the N.C. Commerce Department’s Labor and Economic Analysis Division.
Currently, ABSS has 8,314 students enrolled in CTE courses for the 2025-26 school year, and “CTE concentrators” in high school have an average graduation rate of 99 percent, based on data that Drummond presented during the school board’s work session.
More than 1,127 ABSS students are currently enrolled in honors-level and Advanced Placement CTE courses, she said during the work session.
A CTE concentrator is a high school student who earns credits by completing at least two courses in a “career cluster pathway,” such as Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources; Architecture & Construction; Business Management & Administration; Finance; and Health Science, among others, according to ABSS.
ABSS offers 36 career cluster pathways and a total of 76 CTE courses, Drummond told the board last week.
Meanwhile, 13 ABSS juniors and seniors have recently been offered pre-apprenticeships with five local companies, based on the data that Drummond presented last week.
School board member Seneca Rogers told Drummond that his nephew is one of the 13 students who have been offered a pre-apprenticeship. Rogers said his nephew was reluctant to take a welding class in high school because he wasn’t sure he’d like it, but it turned out that he did.
“Parents, continue to get your kids in these CTE, continue to find out more about them,” Rogers added.
School board member Avery Wagoner pointed out, “I remember the day when we had to go to the community college and pay for this [type of coursework]. To have this provided [free of charge] is amazing.”
School board member Tameka Harvey said that the CTE program offers students an opportunity to earn industry-recognized credentials and go straight into a job, if they want.
At the same time, Drummond acknowledged during a brief discussion with the board that ABSS needs to put more information out to “help students and parents understand what’s offered” through the CTE program.
Drummond said that ABSS next plans to launch a new network security pathway in the CTE program in the fall of 2027.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projected that network (or IT) security would be one of the fastest-growing career fields between 2024 and 2034.
Network security programs train future security analysts to develop measures to protect computer networks from security breaches, to look for vulnerabilities, and to maintain software to protect sensitive information, among other duties, according to the BLS, which estimates that the field will add 52,100 jobs (a growth rate of 29 percent, “much faster than average”) through 2034.
