Alpha Park City brings AI-powered school model to Park City

The K-8 private school combines two hours of adaptive academics with life-skills workshops. Tuition is $50,000 a year.

PARK CITY, Utah — A private school built around artificial intelligence, two-hour academic blocks, and afternoons devoted to life skills is establishing itself in Park City, bringing a rapidly expanding education model to the Wasatch Back.

Alpha Park City, a K-8 campus of the Austin, Texas-based Alpha School network, currently serves 30 students and has capacity for 46, according to Chelsea Winters, an associate dean of parents on Alpha’s expansion team. The school plans to open at its 3770 UT-224 location in January. Annual tuition is $50,000.

Calling Alpha an “AI school,” however, can create an image Winters says does not quite match what happens inside.

Students spend about two hours each morning on core academics using adaptive learning technology rather than receiving traditional whole-class instruction. Human educators, whom Alpha calls “guides,” remain in the room to monitor progress, coach students, and step in when they struggle.

“I think people are so concerned that this is a computer-driven school,” Winters said. “And it’s actually our guides that really make the Alpha model so successful.”

The academic block is broken into shorter periods rather than two uninterrupted hours in front of a screen. Winters said students work for about 25 minutes, take movement or reset breaks, then move on to another subject.

Alpha describes its approach as “2 Hour Learning,” using adaptive software to personalize lessons and allow students to progress at their own pace. The organization says the shortened academic period leaves the remainder of the day for collaborative projects, physical activity, public speaking, entrepreneurship, and other life skills.

At the Park City campus, Winters said those afternoons have already taken on a distinctly local flavor.

During one recent workshop, middle school students received mountain bikes in boxes and assembled them independently. To finish the project, an independent mechanic inspected each bike, and students fixed any problems before completing a group trail ride.

Winters said the goal was not simply to build a bike. Students practiced independence and learned to work through problems when they got stuck.

The model grew from a small Austin school founded in 2014. MacKenzie Price co-founded Alpha School and its affiliated 2 Hour Learning model. The school’s beginnings trace to Price and Brian Holtz and a small program initially called Emergent Academy. Technology entrepreneur Joe Liemandt, founder of software company Trilogy, later became Alpha’s principal and has played a major role in expanding the model.

Alpha has expanded quickly. Its current locations page lists campuses or planned campuses across the country, from Austin and Miami to Boston, Chicago, Palo Alto, Denver and Park City.

Central to Alpha’s pitch is the claim that students can make significantly more academic progress while spending less time on traditional coursework.

Winters said students take the NWEA MAP assessment three times each year to establish their academic starting point and measure growth. She said Alpha students tested during the 2025-26 school year scored in the 98th and 99th percentiles nationally in math, reading, language, and science.

When students struggle, Winters said the technology and guides are designed to identify it quickly. Alpha uses software called TimeBack to track focused learning time, while guides can see when a student gets stuck, loses focus, or falls short of an individual target.

“They’re able to actually step in,” Winters said, whether that means helping a student identify available resources, talking through the problem, or simply recognizing that the child needs to get up and move.

Cost remains one of the clearest limitations on who can currently participate in the Park City program.

Tuition at Alpha Park City is $50,000 annually, and Winters said the new campus currently offers no scholarships.

She said Alpha’s broader ambition is eventually to make its approach available to far more students through lower-cost models and scholarship programs. Other Alpha-affiliated programs operate at different price points, and Winters said established campuses have begun introducing scholarship opportunities.

“We know that’s not necessarily accessible for all families yet,” Winters said. “We’re working towards developing different models.”

For now, Alpha Park City remains deliberately small, with 16 seats remaining at its current 46-student capacity.

Winters said the school also plans to open to the larger community through events where families can see student projects and what Alpha calls “Alpha Tests,” practical demonstrations that show students have mastered a skill.

“We know it’s different, and we know people have questions,” Winters said. “We want to be able to have people come in and get to see what this looks like, and just be a positive part of the community.”