Leakey ISD to visit Alpha AI campus as district explores grant-funded individualized instruction pilot

Superintendent Chris Yeschke told trustees the district has applied for a grant to pilot Alpha AI, an AI-driven instructional model that uses NWEA data to personalize lessons. The district's proposed pilot could secure up to 30 spots under a grant; the first semester would be free under the grant and ongoing costs were described in meeting materials (one campus cited $40,000/year tuition while a cited per-class price was $2,000). Yeschke said the district team (including principals and business manager) will visit an Alpha AI campus in Brownsville on Jan. 16 to review operations.

Meeting materials describe program features such as individualized lesson plans, short daily fluency practice, 40-minute lessons targeted to student needs, and a stated money-back guarantee described in the materials as "twice average growth or no payment." The board discussed the program as a potential Tier 3 intervention tool and as part of a longer-term move toward individualized instruction enabled by technology; no formal pilot approval vote was recorded in the minutes excerpt.