On my TI-84PlusCE I press pgrm and I get 2 choices:
1. TI-Basic
2. Python App

It appears with the CEmu that I have I don't have those choices.

Is there a rev around that supports Python?

If so, where do i get?

The current release of CEmu doesn't support emulation of the Python coprocessor, as it was released before the TI-83PCEEP came out in 2019 (oof).
There is an experimental branch that contains code for emulating it, but it's still not good enough to actually use.
I would recommend using TI's official emulator, SmartView, for testing Python stuff. It's also available on TI-Planet, but with a limited trial period.

I'm trying to put together a course so that 9th grade kids can get some exposure to writing code.

They all have TI84's.

At first I thought that Python (it's more intuitive) would be the way to go, since it is the native TI language, for the TI84+CE but I'm slowly starting to think that there would be substantially fewer problems down the road if I used TIBasic.

The Smartview is a nice tool but it requires a license and that costs $$$.

Any comments?

Python is only a late addition to TI calculators, their native languages (there are two major dialects of TI-Basic depending on the calculator series, with variants across models) remain TI-Basic

However, moving forward, Python is a better choice for your students, because it is in widespread usage in the real world. I just hope that you can deal with the numerous limitations of TI's Python implementation (in its official state), one of the most important of which is the low maximum source code length, usually several KBs on average. The exact value depends on which language features are used by the source code, which changes the amount of memory used to represent programs in the small Python heap.

Then again, a few KBs is more than enough so that "9th grade kids can get some exposure to writing code."

Have you taken a look at https://education.ti.com/en/activities/ti-codes/python/84 ?

Several KBs may be enough to provide some exposure to writing code, but we both know that the kind of fun programs that some kids may want to build, in order to hone their skills beyond the course's envelope, are easily larger than that

I'd actually suggest taking a look at tiplanet's project builder: https://tiplanet.org/pb
It requires an account to use, but it works in a web browser, and allows you to program in C.

I would suggest the CE C toolchain, instead of TIPlanet's project builder, for building larger projects, because it is way easier to format the code in folders and separate files, and you can use the terminal directly. Also, you don't have to be online, and it is easier to have gfx things, such as sprites, directly on the computer. However, if the students are only making small projects, I guess that it might be a good idea to use the online project builder because they can access the program from anywhere with their user info and it is easier to compile and test run programs as well.
Link to the CE C toolchain: https://github.com/CE-Programming/toolchain/releases/tag/v9.1
Link to the CE C toolchain Documentation: https://ce-programming.github.io/toolchain/index.html
Link to the CE emulator (if you don't want to reset your calculator's RAM with a bug in your program): https://ce-programming.github.io/CEmu/

I recommended the project builder because if we're talking about a school environment, chances are they have access to chromebooks and not much else.
The toolchain, sadly, doesn't work on chromebooks, but the project builder does. (You do need one real computer to dump the ROM, though. And that's only if you're planning to use the built in emulator.)

That said, the PB doesn't have TU-Basic or Python support just yet...

If your students all have access to computers, I would recommend using those rather than the calculators. Any TI-84 Plus-series calculator sold in the US prior to this year won't support Python, and TI-BASIC isn't a great introduction to programming, in my opinion, as it's quite limited and its design almost necessitates using poor coding practices.
There are online sites for running Python programs, such as Programiz and CodeSkulptor, which will offer a much better user experience than a calculator will, as Python was designed to be used with a regular keyboard layout rather than a calculator keypad.

If your students only have access to calculators, and you just need an emulator for display purposes, you can still edit Python programs in CEmu, just not run them. The current development version of CEmu allows you to send the Python app, which you can download from TI's website. Once you do that, you can open the Python app from the apps menu, and use the program editor as usual, you'll just get an error message if you try to run a program or use the shell.