At 1 p.m. on the second day of class at Alpha School’s K-8 campus in South Austin, students had been finished with their academics for hours. The school is housed in a converted office building just south of Zilker Park, where students work on computer puzzles and exercise on the blacktop outside.
Each grade has a checklist of so-called “life skills” that they need to complete to move to the next grade or “level.” That afternoon, most of the students were focused on the life skill “grit.” They were learning to juggle, training for a 5K, and in one room, folding paper to build a Rube Goldberg machine.
Many students transfer to Alpha from traditional schools. One told Texas Standard he switched to Alpha’s high school after facing burnout and what he called wasted time at his public magnet school. He said his workload dropped dramatically when he transferred to Alpha.
Each day, Alpha students do all of their academic work in two hours using an AI program that personalizes content to their strengths and weaknesses.
Then, students spend the afternoon trying to check life skills off their grade’s checklist and learning in group workshops about entrepreneurship, AI use, or at the high school in downtown Austin, working on what are called their “masterpiece” projects.
Students do not have homework or regular teachers. Instead, well-compensated “guides” from all walks of life are there each day to help motivate students and demonstrate life skills.
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