AI‑powered private school lands in Virginia

An AI-driven private school is opening this fall in Northern Virginia, one of eight new campuses Texas-based Alpha Schools has in the works to double its U.S. footprint.

Why it matters: Alpha Schools is riding the parental school choice movement while embracing the technology that will shape kids' futures — a challenge public schools are grappling with.

How it works: At Alpha Schools, students spend no more than two hours a day on core academics, then devote the rest of the day to developing life skills.

• AI models generate personalized learning plans for students, who then learn on third-party apps like Synthesis Tutor and Math Academy, as well as Alpha Schools' own programs. Each subject is taught in 25-minute sessions, with short breaks in between.
• Founder MacKenzie Price tells Axios that Alpha Schools can ensure students master concepts before new material is introduced.
• Instead of teachers, the schools employ "guides," who start at $100,000 a year. They don't create lesson plans or lectures. Think of them more like coaches, who work to motivate students and come from a range of backgrounds, from tech to law.

Zoom in: For $65,000, NoVa K-3 students will get 60-90 minutes of outdoor play, in addition to the two hours of personalized learning and development of life skills like "entrepreneurship" and "grit and hard work," per its website.

• The school is hosting info sessions for parents who want want one of 25 slots at the school's Chantilly location, near Dulles International Airport, the Washington Post reports.
• The Virginia school is opening inside a Guidepost Montessori location and will operate alongside that school, per Washington Business Journal.
• Alpha Schools struck a deal last month to acquire some assets from Guidepost's parent company, Higher Ground Education. Guidepost shuttered multiple campuses last year, including in Chesterfield and Virginia Beach.

Zoom out: Alpha School, which say it avoids political and social issues, is gaining more national attention, boosted by the support of billionaire Bill Ackman, a known critic of DEI.

• Price says the anti-DEI movement was not a driving factor behind the school's inception, although her disappointment in her daughter's public education was.
• She is a supporter of school choice, though, the Post reports. In the last two years she or entities tied to her donated more than $2 million to Republicans and PACs who support alternative school options.
• That incudes $1 million to Gov. Glenn Youngkin's PAC in 2023 shortly after he toured an Alpha School in Austin.

What's next: Besides Chantilly, Alpha will launch this fall in Santa Barbara, Calif.; New York City; and Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C., before expanding to Houston, Tampa and Puerto Rico.