A Peek into Silicon Valley’s Newest Bet: AltSchool

The latest tech darling is a school that looks very little like a school. These photos offer a glimpse of how students there spent their time.

By Mary Jo Madda

AltSchool, the startup that’s building a network of “micro-schools” across the country, is attracting major venture capital — and public attention. Founded in 2013, AltSchool currently operates four schools in San Francisco, none of which look like a traditional school. Instead of every child learning from the same math textbook, AltSchoolers are divided into smaller groups to, say, build a lightbulb, as part of the school’s “personalized project-based learning” approach. Classes aren’t divided by grade or age.

Max Ventilla, the founder of AltSchool (and former Googler), acknowledged how radically different an AltSchooler’s day looks from the average public school student’s. “The only way to make it to the next peak is to break out of your current way of thinking and attempt something truly different — an intimidating undertaking, given the 25 children that are tethered to you at the moment,” he wrote in a blog.

Being affiliated with Silicon Valley, technology and money are omnipresent in AltSchool. They’ve built custom technologies for admissions, family communications, and procurement. Teachers can make over $100,000 per year. For students, yearly tuition hovers around $20,000. Though some financial assistance is available, the steep tuition keeps the pool of students within a particular socioeconomic demographic.

So how does it stack up? Take a peek into AltSchool for yourself.

Refreshingly, “innovation” in AltSchool-speak isn’t just about technology, but rather about teaching students in small, personalized communities. In the above photo, AltSchool teachers showed a group of students how to grow flowers.

Inside the classroom, students engage in a “learner-centered curriculum,” which focuses on student “playlists” that tap into individual learning needs. Every student’s playlist is created by teachers with input from the student and his/her parents.

In the above photo, you may have noticed the device between the two windows. It’s called “AltVideo” and it’s embedded into each classroom to records what happens inside. Its primary function is, apparently, to “assist educators for research, training, and replicating best practices.” Teachers may get a chance to look at their colleagues’ footage for professional development.

To assess project-based learning, assignment submissions typically require some sort of documentation through a student’s iPad or Chromebook, usually in the form of photos of projects taken by students.

Instead of having distinct grades, students become part of a community grouped in pre-K to 1st grade, 2nd to 5th grade, or 6th to 8th grade — becoming both mentees and mentors of their fellow students with each passing year.

Inside the classroom, teachers use a custom online platform to give varying assignments to students of different ages.

Each AltSchool class has no more than 25 students. Being a “micro-school,” there is no gymnasium or cafeteria.