Alpha makes three promises to every one of our students (and by proxy, their parents): Love school, learn 2x faster, and learn life skills.

• Students love school

  A love of school creates the atmosphere necessary for students to succeed. Everything else (learning, creativity, risk-taking, hard work) follows a love of school. Self-agency is built upon engagement, which requires investment and commitment to their work.

• Students learn two times (2x) faster.

  Alpha utilizes adaptive technology, an innovative schedule, and self-agency to create an environment where students remain engaged and therefore learn twice as fast as their counterparts in traditional schools. Students accomplish the work of a typical academic day in 100 minutes, or two traditional class periods, as compared to the 7 hours of a traditional school.

• Students learn life skills.

  Alpha students learn practical life skills, such as public speaking, giving and receiving feedback, personal finance, and entrepreneurship, via project-based workshops. Students tackle these projects as individuals, within a group, or as a part of a whole-level experience.

A love of school is the first principle of education, and creates the atmosphere necessary for students to succeed. Everything else (learning, creativity, risk-taking, hard work) follows from a love of school. But when we speak of loving school, we don’t mean that school is easy, or that we should go to Six Flags everyday, or that we cater to every student’s whims. In fact, if students really love school, they are more motivated to take on harder tasks that push them out of their comfort zone to grow their abilities. Here’s how we create an atmosphere that students love at Alpha:

• Challenge & Competition: Students want to feel progress. They want to work on problems that challenge them at the outer edge of their capabilities. We do this through hands-on projects and personalized learning apps that meet each student at his or her level. Students want to compete with each other, so we create engaging competitions based on achievement in learning apps.

• Connection: Students want to learn in an environment where they are known and loved. They need to be surrounded by adults who care about them deeply and expect them to be great every single day. It is with this in mind that we choose our Guides.

• Sense of Place: Love of school is about the practices and spatial design that make any place exciting and thought-provoking. Moveable furniture? Check. Rituals built into the schedule? Check. We pay attention to the details when we create the physical and social environment at Alpha.

• Ownership: Students must feel like they own their time at school, and that they are in the driver’s seat when it comes to both setting and achieving their goals. It is with this notion of “agency” that we developed everything we do at Alpha -- it’s even the reason our students are in charge of cleaning up the Alpha space twice each day.

  To learn more, view this blog post.

2x learning means that our students spend half of the time that traditional schools spend on core academics, and in that time are able to achieve the 90th percentile or above on their MAP testing. Adaptive education technology has enabled us to meet students at their level and shape a path that fits their pace. A focused 100 minute period every morning, Core Skills, is spent using a variety of adaptive educational software.

We teach life skills through a project-based curriculum. Students tackle these real life projects as individuals, with a group, or as a part of a level workshop. We orient our life skills curriculum around specific, teachable, and measurable skills. When students learn concrete skills, they build integrated, holistic qualities like “leadership” and “adaptability” along the way. And they gain the confidence to chart their own path through life.

Students are placed into levels based on a combination of their age and academic progress. After each round of MAP testing*, MAP scores are reviewed along with each student’s age to determine their level placement. A student will never “level down” -- he or she will only stay in the same level or advance to the next one.

The LL and Linc programs are designed to cover kindergarten through second grade. While age ranges vary in each level, students typically spend two years in each subsequent level, with the exception of Level 4, which is designed to be a four-year program.

Families may sign up for Alpha’s daily farm-to-table lunch program at the beginning of the academic school year. The lunch program includes prepared menu items, along with some grab-and-go bento boxes as an alternative food choice for those participants who aren’t up for the day’s special. The program also offers vegan and gluten-free meals to accommodate students with dietary restrictions. However, Alpha is not a peanut-free or allergen-free environment.

Alpha does not have a registered nurse on campus. That said, all members of our staff are trained in the use of Epi-Pens and the monitoring of specific medical needs. Our staff are also CPR and first aid certified annually.

While Alpha schedules vary by session (and we are continuously optimizing them for our students!), they tend to follow the same rough format that’s outlined in the walk-through on this website. You can also review schedules for specific Alpha levels on the Parent Portal, or read a quick write-up on our Typical Day.

Students aren’t weighed down by textbook-filled backpacks at Alpha, no matter what the grade. Because the learning takes place online or in a group, the only required supplies are:

• Shoes (you’d be shocked, but we feel the need to mention this :)
• A water bottle -- our tiny push to save the environment!
• A lunch if your child is not participating in Alpha’s lunch program
• A snack if desired
• Their school-issued laptop

No giant list of glue sticks, color-coded folders or safety scissors here. For our LL, Linc, L1 and L2 students, Alpha provides everything students need to be successful -- laptops, headphones, pencils, paper and all workshop supplies. They may bring their own personal items -- think toys for breaks or fancy pencils to express their unique style -- but nothing else is required.

L3 and L4 students don’t need much, but they will need to supply their own graphing calculator, writing utensils and a notebook.

Alpha currently enrolls 150 total students and has nearly a 50/50 ratio of male to female students. Our students are each members of smaller levels, with LL and Linc at approximately 12 students and level size growing slightly until L4 (high school age), which has approximately 20 students per cohort.

We love giving students the agency and accountability of setting their own goals at Alpha. That said, these goals are not set in a vacuum. Our Guides evaluate each student’s current placement, rate of progress, and the ultimate goal of getting to 90th percentile of grade level, and then work with each student to ensure that they are walking down the right academic path. The daily, weekly and session goal setting process becomes a student-Guide negotiation, with constant coaching. Over time, our students get better at this, while our Guides continue to monitor and push them toward an appropriate level of challenge.

Sometimes goals will be too easy or too hard. We don’t consider this a failure -- in fact, we welcome these times, because realizing that something is easier or harder than you thought is one of many “on the job” ways our students learn and grow at Alpha. If our students don’t fail from time to time, it’s a sign that they aren’t pushing themselves hard enough. Because our school is a safe place to try new things and there’s no penalty for failure, it’s the perfect environment to practice the important life skills of grit and resilience.

The MAP (also referred to as MAP Growth) assessment is a web-based, adaptive assessment tool that provides an accurate measure of your child’s academic growth, independent of grade level or age. MAP was developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association, (read more about it at NWEA). In short, this test is a high-quality alternative to state-based standardized assessments (e.g. STAAR). For more detail about why we use it, you can check out our blog.

MAP test data helps us with goal setting and progress measurement. It’s an adaptive test, which means it results in a different experience for each student, and we coach students to think about it as an extension of their regular Core Skills time. We want our students to be comfortable taking tests and for them to see these times as a way for us to better understand their personal learning strengths and growth areas.

Alpha has developed an Academic Continuum to ensure that our students progress properly throughout their academic career at our school. The Continuum uses a mastery-based education model, meaning that our students dedicate additional time to study areas they have not mastered, while moving quickly through subjects they already grasp. To understand where students currently belong on our Continuum, and therefore to ensure that they are working on content that is appropriate for them, we use three data sources -- the MAP test, the built-in assessment tools within our adaptive apps, and when necessary, Guide observation.

From LL to L3, our students learn Social Studies in two ways -- from the non-fiction reading comprehension apps they work on during their Core Skills time, and via relevant workshops they choose in the afternoon, such as “Build a Civilization.”

Social Studies becomes more prescriptive at the “high school” level. L4 coursework includes AP Human Geography, AP World History, AP U.S. History and AP Government. Students may extend this coursework into Economics and Government coursework, depending on passion and aptitude.

Our L4 students are the only Alpha students who receive numeric grades and a grade point average (GPA) at Alpha, as grades can be helpful both in the college admission process and in preparation for more traditional grading in college. For the rest of our students, grades do not fit with our mastery model of education.

When working through our Continuum via a mastery model, students dedicate additional time to studying the concepts they have not mastered and move quickly past concepts they already fully grasp. There is no floor or ceiling on the content our students tackle, so if their test results show they need to go back to the basics in a subject, they will. If their results show they’re ready for advanced content, that’s what they’ll be matched with. The mastery model has been shown to dramatically improve educational outcomes without numeric grades or an association between age and content.

The primary motivators of our students are our Guides. Because of our app-based educational approach, Guides have the time and resources to focus more deeply on truly understanding and connecting with our students, building authentic relationships and encouraging them to put in their best effort.

We know that different things motivate different students to put in extra effort, especially in varying age ranges. As student experts, Guides collaborate to create systems that keep their group of students engaged and excited to press into new academic work. Some systems (also called Motivational Models) last a session and are replaced after those seven weeks. Some systems have been so universally successful that they have become an enduring trademark of their level.

While our motivational models vary per level, they have a few commonalities:

1. They focus on effort, not outcome
2. They reward positive behaviors instead of penalizing negative ones
3. They are based on each student and his or her individual goals, rather than comparing students academically to each other

Because our students use their time more efficiently by using academic apps, they have the time to learn life skills, explore new interests and learn by doing in our afternoon workshops.

Afternoon workshops are oriented around a clear learning objective, and have clear criteria for successful completion. Specific information about your student’s current workshops can be found via the Parent Portal.

Our workshops vary widely in topic area and format. Students may learn principles of personal finance, or how to build and market an iOS app. That said, they have something in common -- along the way, they’ll also teach your student more holistic qualities, such as how to manage teams of peers or adults, have difficult conversations, give presentations, offer and receive productive feedback, make decisions probabilistically, or write a cold email so good it can’t be ignored. In short, our workshops are designed to engage each student, while giving all of our students the confidence to chart their own path in life.

While parents are always a valuable source of moral support and encouragement for our students, you can leave the rest to us. The best way parents can help at Alpha is by stepping back and empowering their kids. With Guide coaching, your children are capable of managing their schoolwork, picking workshops, meeting goals and asking the right questions -- we promise! If your student is struggling with motivation or content, his or her Guide will step in to help. That said, you should feel comfortable contacting your child’s Guide with any questions, concerns or suggestions at any time.

Formal parent conferences take place after each round of MAP testing. These conferences typically take place during the school day. That said, we encourage any parents with questions, concerns, or suggestions to reach out to our Guides or other staff members via email at any point in the session. All staff can be expected to answer emails within 24 hours.

Everything! Need a form? Curious about workshop descriptions? Want to see photos of your student? Go to the portal! If you haven’t yet registered for the Parent Portal, you can do so here: https://parents.go-alpha.org/wp-login.php?action=register

Curious about your child’s progress within the apps? Don’t hesitate to have your child take you through his or her daily and weekly goals, and even show you inside individual apps. You can also reach out to your student’s Guide for more information, or wait for progress reports at the end of every session, which note goal completion. As for parent access to individual apps -- no way, José. You’ve chosen Alpha because you believe in our methods, and those methods include trusting the apps and the Guides to monitor student progress and ensure you have nothing to worry about!

Getting stuck on an app is something we’ve all experienced as adults, and we expect it to happen with our students. It’s the process of getting “unstuck” that helps teach our children “how to learn” and helps them take responsibility for their own progress. Students are given coaching on how to access the resources to help them get unstuck, such as some common troubleshooting questions:

• Did you use the help function in the app?
• Did you read the explanation in the app?
• Did you use the online and offline resources that are readily available to you? (offline being tools such as a number line or manipulables for LL)
• Have you asked a friend?
• Have you asked a Guide?

Alpha’s enrollment process is simple. A family comes to tour the campus, the student spends a day in his or her prospective level as a shadow student, and an enrollment decision is made by Alpha staff.

There are a few academic requirements. For example, we require incoming LL students to be able to recognize all letters and numbers. Level 3 students must also take informal math assessments to determine proficiency. But for the most part, we use the shadow day as an opportunity to determine whether your child will be successful in the Alpha environment. Alpha Guides and support staff spend time with shadow students and observe whether they are able to work independently, embrace new challenges, and treat their classmates with respect. At the same time, your child uses the shadow day to determine whether this unique academic environment feels right to them.

Alpha operates on a high-personal-accountability model. Students are expected to act with honesty and care as they uphold the following values within the community.

• Alpha community members do not lie, cheat or steal.
• Alpha community members are responsible, loyal and considerate.

We’re proud to say that attendance is not a real issue at Alpha. Because Alpha students LOVE school, they generally want to be here! While there is no official attendance policy, Guides do monitor absences when they begin to impede on a student’s productivity or ability to participate in a workshop.

Our goal is to make the Core Skills in Alpha Anywhere as similar to Core Skills at school as possible. That means that even though these students are not on campus, they are still responsible for setting their own goals, choosing when they switch between subjects, and having a daily check-in with their Guide. To that end, the only requirements for Alpha Anywhere are solid internet access and the ability to check in with a Guide daily during school hours.

Alpha’s motivational systems focus on positive rewards instead of negative consequences. These positive rewards are carefully designed for individual learning levels and kids, and continue to adapt to ensure effectiveness.

Parents can review the Alpha Campus Handbooks on the Parent Portal. Don’t have access? Register here: https://parents.go-alpha.org/wp-login.php?action=register

Our L4 students are the only Alpha students who receive numeric grades and a grade point average (GPA) at Alpha, as grades can be helpful both in the college admission process and in preparation for more traditional grading in college. For more information about how L4 grades are calculated, click here.

We believe that students can design and execute wildly ambitious plans to learn and achieve anything they want, provided they are willing to put in the work. AlphaX, or our subject matter expertise work, is not only an opportunity for each student to learn about something they love; it will also set them apart from the competition when applying to colleges.

Every L4 student at Alpha chooses their AlphaX project as part of their first L4 year. They pick an area of interest, set an ambitious goal within that area, and create a learning plan that will allow them to reach that goal. You can learn more about AlphaX here.

Students complete their coursework for foreign languages via online classes. This coursework satisfies the academic requirements of top colleges. In addition to this online work, all L4 students complete an immersion program that brings the language to life and gives them a chance to engage with new cultures. More information on the foreign language program is forthcoming.