Parents Lured by Alpha School’s Promise Now Desperate to Leave
▼ Summary
– A 9-year-old student became stuck on a repetitive IXL math lesson requiring her to correctly multiply three-digit numbers over 20 times without errors, causing significant distress.
– Alpha School’s adult guides did not provide teaching assistance, instead instructing the student to complete the software-assigned work despite her requests to move on.
– The student’s academic performance declined as she fell further behind her learning goals while spending hours, including lunch breaks, trying to complete IXL assignments.
– The student experienced physical health impacts, including significant weight loss, which her pediatrician documented and recommended addressing with snacks between meals.
– School staff reportedly withheld the student’s doctor-recommended snacks, telling her she hadn’t earned them until meeting her learning metrics, contrary to medical advice.
For families seeking innovative educational models, the promise of personalized, self-directed learning can be incredibly appealing. However, the reality for some parents who enrolled their children in Alpha School, a private microschool in Brownsville, Texas, has been far from the empowering experience they anticipated. Instead of fostering a love for learning, they report a system that has left their children stressed, anxious, and falling behind.
Kristine Barrios watched her nine-year-old daughter struggle with a single math lesson for an entire weekend. The girl, who was working a grade level ahead, became trapped in a cycle on the IXL learning software. The program required her to correctly solve a complex multiplication problem over twenty consecutive times without a single mistake. Whenever she erred, the software automatically assigned more practice questions. Barrios says her daughter pleaded with her classroom “guide”, the adult supervisor who does not act as a traditional teacher, to let her advance, but was told she simply had to complete the work. The family spent hours over the weekend coaxing the sobbing child through the assignment, with Barrios eventually verifying every answer with a calculator herself.
The situation escalated when the school informed Barrios and her husband that their daughter had stopped eating lunch. The parents were told the girl was skipping meals to spend more time catching up on her IXL lessons. During a subsequent doctor’s visit, the pediatrician expressed serious concern after noting the child had lost a significant amount of weight in a short period. Following the doctor’s advice, the parents sent their daughter to school with snacks, along with a note from the pediatrician authorizing their consumption between meals. This directly contradicted the school’s handbook, which asked parents to “refrain” from sending “midday snacks,” but the family felt compelled to follow medical guidance.
Initially, the girl ate the snacks, but soon she began returning home with them untouched in her backpack. When a concerned Barrios asked if the school was providing alternative food, her daughter gave a heartbreaking explanation. The child reported that school staff told her she had not “earned” her snacks and would not receive them until she met her specific learning metrics. This incident, coupled with the academic distress, has left parents like the Barrios family feeling desperate to find a new educational environment for their children, one that prioritizes well-being over algorithmic performance.
(Source: Wired)
