Unlike many school districts with digital programs, Piedmont has a goal that’s broader than creating high-tech classrooms. According to Matt Akin, the superintendent of Piedmont City Schools, the district hopes to resuscitate a dying rural town. "That’s always been the bigger picture," Akin said. "What can we do to revive a community?"

It’s an ambitious goal for a district of 1,240 students located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, about 15 miles west of the Georgia border. In recent years, several major factories have shut down operations in Piedmont and relocated elsewhere, taking hundreds of jobs with them. The modest downtown area is lined with abandoned buildings and empty storefronts, with a few businesses, like a café and a clothing store, clustered together on the main street.

The town of about 4,800 has a median household income of only $33,000, about $20,000 lower than the national average, according to census data. More than 9 percent of the town’s residents are unemployed, and 25 percent of its adults age 25 and older have less than a high school diploma. Nearly 37 percent of Piedmont’s children live in poverty.

"It’s hard to bring jobs in," Akin said. "But if the school district increases in enrollment and if the community becomes an attractive place to raise your kids … that would be great for economic development."

A technology program of Piedmont’s size is an unlikely sight in rural Alabama, a state so far behind on technology use in schools that it earned an F on a "digital learning report card" published this year by Digital Learning Now, a group that advocates for more online learning. (Roughly a dozen other states also received Fs, including Illinois and Connecticut.) The ratings were based on whether schools have high-speed broadband, whether teachers and students have Internet-capable devices, and whether the state has met certain benchmarks to ensure effective use of technology.

Across the country, 70 percent of schools lack a high-speed Internet connection, a disproportionate number of them in poor urban and rural communities, according to estimates from the Federal Communications Commission. On Thursday, the FCC will vote on an initiative to increase spending on Internet connections for schools and libraries by about $1.5 billion a year.

In Alabama, less than 60 percent of residents have access to high-speed Internet, compared to the national average of 71 percent, according to census data. Rural areas like Piedmont often have even less access. Educators say that the technology and Internet gap compounds the state’s educational challenges. On national standardized exams, the state’s fourth- and eighth-grade students rank near the bottom compared to students from other states.

Outcomes for the state’s rural residents are even more dismal. More than four out of every 10 students in Alabama attend rural schools, and they have posted some of the lowest scores on standardized tests in recent years, compared to rural students nationwide. More than 55 percent of the state’s rural students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, and nearly 80 percent of rural adults in Alabama lack a high school diploma. Rural Alabama adults also have one of the highest unemployment rates compared to rural adults in other states, and one of the lowest median household incomes in the nation.