When I walked into our annual board retreat at Comp Sci High, a charter school in the South Bronx where I’ve served on the board for 8 years, the Founding Principal of the school, David Noah, pointed his laptop in my direction and kicked off the conversation by saying, “Look what I vibe-coded for the school this summer.”

I couldn’t help but grin as he showed me what he’d built — a dashboard for teachers to manage the calendars for their week in real-time. He built it using no-code platform, Replit, and even included a few API calls and a fully authenticated login system.

Later I learned that the Computer Science Department Chair, Shilpa Agrawal, facilitated a vibe-coding hackathon over the summer for the entire CS team where they challenged themselves to just start building. When first-time vibe-coding teachers built useful apps (such as a literacy tracker) in just an hour, the school decided it was time to rethink its long-standing CS curriculum.

Starting this year, Comp Sci High will incorporate AI no-code building into their 11th and 12th grade CS classes. Notably, this doesn’t mean abandoning fundamentals, but rather encouraging students to use AI-generated code once they’ve first mastered reading and writing it themselves.

Here’s what I love about this approach:

• It’s tactile. That teachers who had never vibe coded before first tried it themselves before coming to any conclusions meant that the results were based on real-world outcomes and impact.

• It’s organic. The grassroots way that the CS team collectively leaned into a culture of hands-on experimentation and tinkering is exactly what we see happening at the most AI-fluent companies today.

• It’s flexible. Recognizing that the speed of AI development will inevitably move faster than any school curriculum, they are building adaptability into the framework.

While this level of empowerment is not (yet) happening at every school, I’m so excited to see this level of experimentation taking place, and the instant agency that comes when people realize how quickly they can level up and build something for themselves

In my eight years on the board at Comp Sci High, I’ve watched the school weather a pandemic in one of New York City’s most under-resourced neighborhoods, secure a new building, and navigate countless student and parent crises. I’ve seen first-hand how the leadership team has learned how to lean into uncomfortable moments in service of a community and its North Star mission of making every graduate financially independent and secure by age 25.

I believe it’s this resilience that now positions schools like Comp Sci High to take the reins and reimagine what education could look like in the AI age. In this video, you’ll see how their commitment to literacy (by removing cell phones from day one and introducing daily free reading time) has fostered stronger reading habits.

What excites me most about working with educators like this is their ability to look beyond the classroom walls. On the industry side today, even professional engineers rely on AI to write code. And people like me, even without formal training, can still get apps across the finish line. If schools don’t experiment with these tools early, students will be the ones left behind.

One question surfaced: Should a student be allowed to submit an app as homework for an English class? If the app demonstrates mastery of The Great Gatsby, could that be just as valid as a five-paragraph essay? What new ways of showing knowledge might technology unlock?

It’s easy to talk about AI; it’s harder to set aside time for deliberate practice. That’s why I’m so energized by Comp Sci High’s plans. A student vibe-coding hackathon is already in the works, and the board is engaging deeply with the implications of AI, both in school and in the workforce.

Because at its core, AI in schools isn’t just about efficiency or tools. It’s about reimagining what learning looks like, helping students show what they know, and ulatimately equipping them to understand how they learn so they can keep building long after they graduate.

When I walked into our annual board retreat at Comp Sci High, a charter school in the South Bronx where I’ve served on the board for 8 years, the Founding Principal of the school, David Noah, pointed his laptop in my direction and kicked off the conversation by saying, “Look what I vibe-coded for the school this summer.”

I couldn’t help but grin as he showed me what he’d built — a dashboard for teachers to manage the calendars for their week in real-time. He built it using no-code platform, Replit, and even included a few API calls and a fully authenticated login system.

Later I learned that the Computer Science Department Chair, Shilpa Agrawal, facilitated a vibe-coding hackathon over the summer for the entire CS team where they challenged themselves to just start building. When first-time vibe-coding teachers built useful apps (such as a literacy tracker) in just an hour, the school decided it was time to rethink its long-standing CS curriculum.

Starting this year, Comp Sci High will incorporate AI no-code building into their 11th and 12th grade CS classes. Notably, this doesn’t mean abandoning fundamentals, but rather encouraging students to use AI-generated code once they’ve first mastered reading and writing it themselves.

Here’s what I love about this approach:

• It’s tactile. That teachers who had never vibe coded before first tried it themselves before coming to any conclusions meant that the results were based on real-world outcomes and impact.

• It’s organic. The grassroots way that the CS team collectively leaned into a culture of hands-on experimentation and tinkering is exactly what we see happening at the most AI-fluent companies today.

• It’s flexible. Recognizing that the speed of AI development will inevitably move faster than any school curriculum, they are building adaptability into the framework.

While this level of empowerment is not (yet) happening at every school, I’m so excited to see this level of experimentation taking place, and the instant agency that comes when people realize how quickly they can level up and build something for themselves

In my eight years on the board at Comp Sci High, I’ve watched the school weather a pandemic in one of New York City’s most under-resourced neighborhoods, secure a new building, and navigate countless student and parent crises. I’ve seen first-hand how the leadership team has learned how to lean into uncomfortable moments in service of a community and its North Star mission of making every graduate financially independent and secure by age 25.

I believe it’s this resilience that now positions schools like Comp Sci High to take the reins and reimagine what education could look like in the AI age. In this video, you’ll see how their commitment to literacy (by removing cell phones from day one and introducing daily free reading time) has fostered stronger reading habits.

What excites me most about working with educators like this is their ability to look beyond the classroom walls. On the industry side today, even professional engineers rely on AI to write code. And people like me, even without formal training, can still get apps across the finish line. If schools don’t experiment with these tools early, students will be the ones left behind.

One question surfaced: Should a student be allowed to submit an app as homework for an English class? If the app demonstrates mastery of The Great Gatsby, could that be just as valid as a five-paragraph essay? What new ways of showing knowledge might technology unlock?

It’s easy to talk about AI; it’s harder to set aside time for deliberate practice. That’s why I’m so energized by Comp Sci High’s plans. A student vibe-coding hackathon is already in the works, and the board is engaging deeply with the implications of AI, both in school and in the workforce.

Because at its core, AI in schools isn’t just about efficiency or tools. It’s about reimagining what learning looks like, helping students show what they know, and ulatimately equipping them to understand how they learn so they can keep building long after they graduate.