{"id":358730,"date":"2026-07-31T12:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T12:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/358730\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T12:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T12:18:08","slug":"ai-powered-alpha-schools-afternoons-are-for-building-life-skills-and-thats-what-sets-it-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/358730\/","title":{"rendered":"AI-powered Alpha School\u2019s afternoons are for building life skills and that’s what sets it apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a few weeks, Alpha School<\/a>, serving grades K\u20138, will be opening its doors at its new location in Miami Beach.<\/p>\n

The school prides itself on delivering a non-traditional model of education, where students spend just two hours learning academics via AI apps and spend their afternoons doing hands-on activities and building projects together that foster life skills and entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

MacKenzie Price, a Stanford psychology graduate, is the co-founder of Alpha School. She helped come up with this model 12 years ago, after seeing firsthand how her daughter went from being excited about starting school to disliking it and finding it boring. \u201cSo quickly, over a period of just months, I watched that light dim,\u201d she said of her daughter\u2019s disappointment about school. \u201cI just realized we can\u2019t have this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alpha\u2019s promise is that kids will love school, that they\u2019ll learn twice as much (and twice as fast) as their peers who are in traditional schools and that they\u2019ll learn life skills. There are 50 Alpha Schools in the U.S. in 14 states. <\/p>\n

\"\"MacKenzie Price<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that really what makes a kid thrive is if they\u2019re motivated,\u201d said Price. \u201cThey\u2019re basically supporting them with motivational and emotional support and they are helping them learn the skill,\u201d said Price of the guides, who range from D-1 athletes, to coaches and executives. Guides are paid $100,000 with their main job being to motivate and encourage students on their projects. <\/p>\n

Price described some of the entrepreneurial activities the kids partake in, like having a boys versus girls lemonade stand, complete with a marketing campaign to come up with different strategies on how to sell more and win. Fourth and fifth grade students at one of the Alpha schools planned and executed a music festival where 400 people attended. In a teamwork building exercise, students worked together to see what\u2019s missing on a sailboat in order to set sail.<\/p>\n

\u2713<\/p>\n

Check your inbox for a confirmation email.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get a lot of attention about being an AI school or the school with no teachers,\u201d said Price, \u201cbut what families are really excited about are the way the afternoons are spent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Price said when she first came to Miami, families told her they wanted to make sure their kids are \u201cprepared to be dynamic, to be adaptable and to be able to be really great critical thinkers.\u201d To do that, Alpha implements categories to help students build life skills: leadership and teamwork, storytelling and public speaking, and entrepreneurship and financial literacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever the workshop is, it\u2019s teaching some sort of skill around that,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re really doing is teaching things like reading body language, making eye contact, engaging in conversation and understanding things like that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Alpha Miami Beach, on Biarritz Drive in Normandy Isle, costs $65,000 a year. Alpha School Miami (in South Miami), serving grades K\u201312, costs $50,000 annually. There is also a campus in Palm Beach and one planned for Boca Raton this fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiami has attracted so many people who are excited about innovation, entrepreneurship, business about technology but most of all, what I\u2019ve really enjoyed about getting to know the people in Miami is that there\u2019s such a spirit of optimism and enthusiasm for what\u2019s possible.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"Alpha School Miami, in South Miami, has been open for two years.<\/p>\n

READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:<\/p>\n

\"Caitlin<\/a> <\/p>\n

Caitlin Granfield is a freelance journalist in South Florida. In addition to Refresh Miami, her articles, covering a variety of topics, can be found in the Miami Herald, Aventura Magazine, Miami New Times, WLRN and the Biscayne Times.<\/p>\n

\"Caitlin<\/a>Latest posts by Caitlin Granfield (see all<\/a>) \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a few weeks, Alpha School, serving grades K\u20138, will be opening its doors at its new location…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-358730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}