In autumn 2025, senior leaders from Alpha School convened a gathering of affluent New York City families in Lower Manhattan to pitch their latest venture. Hosted by cofounder MacKenzie Price and billionaire principal Joe Liemandt, these sessions aimed to demonstrate how the company was “redefining school” via artificial intelligence. The objective was convincing parents to abandon the traditional system for what was initially marketed as “the most forward-thinking private school in New York.”
The campaign appears to have succeeded. This academic year, over a dozen families have enrolled their children in the sixth and seventh floors of the skyscraper at 180 Maiden Lane. The official Alpha New York webpage lists the daily schedule from 8:15 am to 4:00 pm with a stated “tuition” of $65,000 annually, though founding families received a discount. As Price told the Free Press in May, “Alpha is a product as a school that is catering to a certain demographic,” and “it is a premium, expensive private school.”
However, the Maiden Lane location is not technically a school. Months prior to the information sessions, the New York State Education Department rejected Alpha’s application to incorporate as an independent school. A previously unreported copy of the ruling, obtained by WIRED, noted that “Instruction as proposed is primarily online, with an AI-based platform called 2 Hour Learning™ that delivers instruction in core academic subjects with little to no supervision or competent teacher delivering such instruction.” The department’s office of counsel further stated, “Generally, [the NYSED] does not recognize online schools as proposed.”
Shortly thereafter, Alpha posted on X inviting parents to an info session for the Maiden Lane site, which they termed the “Alpha Anywhere Center.” Alpha Anywhere is the company’s homeschooling product line, advertised at approximately $10,000 per year. Although not explicitly stated in marketing materials, enrollees at the Maiden Lane campus were required to submit formal documentation registering as homeschoolers.
Following WIRED’s outreach in April, Alpha resubmitted its incorporation application, which remains pending with the NYSED. Even if approved, state law requires the company to prove to New York City public school authorities that its core subject instruction is “substantially equivalent” to that of city public schools. This must occur while New York City’s top school official has described AI as an “invasive technology,” prompting calls to further restrict student use of the tool in coursework.
As previously reported, Alpha employs “guides” to oversee classrooms rather than teach academics directly. These adults are tasked with motivating students to complete lessons in personalized learning software. (“We call them guides, coaches, teachers,” Price has said. “We kind of use those words interchangeably.”) The company pairs this app-as-instructor model with a competitive reward system. Students at certain campuses can earn hundreds of dollars over time for high test scores or completing a daily lesson quota. At the Brownsville, Texas campus, sources previously told WIRED that children failing to meet learning goals were barred from specific rooms and denied perks like field trips, toys, or off-campus lunches. The company claims its model allows students to learn twice as much in two hours as peers in traditional schools learn in a day, freeing afternoons for workshops on life skills such as grit, entrepreneurship, and leadership.
WIRED spoke with multiple sources involved in establishing Alpha campuses across the country. Those familiar with the New York site expressed concern about how transparent the company was with prospective parents regarding the non-school status of the facility. “A lot of these parents are just drinking the Kool-Aid,” one source said. “Their kid comes home with a new Nintendo Switch, an AI robot, an iPad, so their kid’s happy, so they’re happy to see it.”
After contacting parents who enrolled their children, a group issued a joint statement acknowledging that the New York City campus is not a school but a “homeschooling support center.” They added that they “are grateful for the positive impact the Alpha Anywhere Center has had on our children and wholeheartedly recommend it to families seeking an innovative, caring, and inspiring educational community for their children’s homeschooling program.” The statement carried 13 named signatories and 22 others who wished to remain anonymous. Other families contacted for comment did not respond.
Under NYSED rules, homeschool parents “may arrange to have their children instructed in a group situation for particular subjects but not for a majority of the home instruction program.” Ralph Rodriguez, a staff attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association, told WIRED that New York has among the strictest regulations in the country. “We ask our parent members to have an understanding that they are indeed providing the majority of instruction to their children, because they have to attest to that in the paperwork they submit to their districts,” Rodriguez said.
“Our New York location is a homeschooling learning center, not a school, and every parent whose child participates in that program knows it,” Alpha wrote in a statement to WIRED. “Alpha Schools operates in full compliance with all applicable laws.”
The Alpha School network has expanded rapidly. Over the past two years, the company has opened new campuses in major US cities to serve what it calls “the right families.” From San Francisco to Miami to New York, Alpha’s marketing presents the spaces as airy, modern, and stylishly furnished—an enticing environment for children to spend their day.
Teams at Trilogy, a software company founded by Liemandt, have overseen the acquisition and renovation of buildings for Alpha School. Internal documents obtained by WIRED indicate that some campuses, particularly the New York City site, were built out at great expense and outfitted luxuriously. Among the members of the New York build-out team was hedge-fund billionaire Bill Ackman, listed as “Parent/Quality Guide/Standard Bearer.” Ackman did not reply to WIRED’s request for comment.
However, documents reveal the priority was to move at “Alpha speed.” This meant rethinking the “default” approach to school construction, which came with too much “dead weight,” according to one Trilogy vice president. “Optimization is a lie at this velocity,” he wrote in an internal planning document. “The only reliable way to achieve Alpha’s opening timelines is subtraction: fewer approvals, fewer handoffs, fewer phases, fewer assumptions, fewer permanent decisions. If a step survives only because ‘that’s how it’s done,’ it is not neutral, it is actively sabotaging the opening date.”
A person with knowledge of Alpha’s expansion characterised the approach to WIRED: “Instead of ‘How do we create the best spaces for our kids?’ it’s ‘What can we get away with?'” Executives would “ask questions like ‘What are the consequences—are we just going to be fined?'” the person said. “They’re like, ‘Take this cinder block, throw some fucking paint on it, open a school, and call it a fucking day.'”
One Trilogy document regarding Alpha’s campuses in New York City and Miami described “Fast-Track Procedures & Assumptions,” stating: “We will commence the buildout at risk. We are willing to trade off the financial risk if permits are not obtained.” Another document from the team involved in opening new Alpha Schools states: “Alpha explicitly trades cost efficiency and permanence for speed to instruction … We (Alpha) should formalize this doctrine: Opening date > safety > operability > cost efficiency > permanence.” While employees are encouraged to follow all applicable permitting rules, the document notes that “many permits exist by habit, not necessity.”
People familiar with Alpha’s new schools told WIRED that some opened without established plans for emergencies like fires, earthquakes, or active shooters. While “functional internet” and “basic branding” were considered “critical,” according to an internal planning document, “first aid” and “fire safety” were considered “nice to have.” One Trilogy document directs teams to “budget for potential surprises,” noting that the classroom doors in Miami had to be replaced because they lacked internal locks and blinds and were “non-compliant with active-shooter requirements.” A person who worked at two campuses told WIRED: “This rapid expansion is more about a billionaire’s ego than the safety of any of these children.”
Internal documents show top executives working on Alpha’s expansion seemed aware of some safety issues. On October 16, 2025, Andrew Jordan, listed on LinkedIn as Trilogy’s chief operating officer, asked Claude Sonnet 4.5 to summarise a “postmortem” document containing feedback about the school expansion team’s work that summer and fall. (Jordan did not reply to WIRED’s request for comment.) The AI-generated summary highlighted “Safety & Compliance Gaps,” which included “buildings occupied without evacuation routes, safe room locations, emergency supplies, or contact information in place,” and “no Shelter-in-Place Plans.” Alpha has contracted with a private security firm to provide guards at some campuses.
Another issue flagged in the AI’s postmortem review—”inspection tracking”—may have referred to Alpha’s campus in Miami, opened in the fall of 2024 and charging $50,000 per year in tuition. According to the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, the building was flagged for several violations, and Alpha does not currently have an annual Life Safety Operating Permit. Instead, it operates under a temporary certificate of occupancy, pending renovations. Last October, a fire inspector observed students in portions of the building they had not yet approved for occupancy, the department told WIRED.
A person familiar with the school said the high school wing and auditorium were being used even though executives and staff knew the areas were off-limits due to safety deficiencies that hadn’t been corrected. “They knew it and they were still operating, even though the fire department had not given them the permits,” the person said. “We had to get all of the kids out.” For a few days, they added, Miami students were relocated offsite—first to a hotel event space, then a Dave & Busters.
Alpha did not respond to WIRED’s questions about fire safety conditions at the Miami campus.
While Trilogy employees and contractors worked to bring the school up to code, more issues emerged. One of the school’s guides requested that sound-dampening privacy pods be installed in a secluded hallway in the high school wing, a person familiar with the school said. Other employees were troubled because the pods would be out of sight of any supervising adults. Some staff referred to the pods as “boom boom rooms” and elevated their concerns regarding student supervision.
Key takeaways
- Alpha School’s New York campus is legally a homeschooling support centre, not a registered school, requiring parents to file formal documentation despite marketing pitches suggesting a traditional private education model.
- Internal documents reveal a corporate culture that prioritises speed and cost efficiency over safety, with executives willing to operate facilities without necessary permits or emergency protocols.
- Regulatory scrutiny remains high in New York, where the state education department has rejected Alpha’s independent school status, and strict homeschooling laws require parents to provide the majority of instruction.
Stay ahead of AI. Get the most important stories delivered to your inbox — no spam, no noise.
