Bianca Seward/Houston Public Media
Clemente Martinez Elementary will be one of nine “Future 2” schools in Houston ISD for the 2026-27.
More technology-related changes are coming to Clemente Martinez and Gregg Elementary schools this fall.
The two Houston ISD campuses are among nine elementary schools already tapped to pilot the district’s “Future 2 Schools” program that will focus on preparing students for a world with artificial intelligence (AI). When a new school year starts Aug. 10, Martinez and Gregg will also add an AI-powered learning program for students who score above 60% in reading and math assessments, the district announced late last week.
Eligible students at Gregg and Martinez – which also is absorbing students from Ross Elementary after HISD’s state-appointed board of managers voted to close Ross alongside 11 other schools because of declining enrollment and aging facilities – will now spend a portion of their morning using Alpha School’s “TimeBack,” an AI-powered learning program, before rejoining their classmates.
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The Alpha School website describes its campuses as places where “kids crush academics in two hours.” Alpha opened 12 years ago in Austin and now has campuses in San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles and other cities.
According to Alpha’s website, the “TimeBack” program was launched publicly earlier this year. The site says the program “generates personalized lessons, optimal lesson plans and AI coaching.”
Alpha did not respond to requests for an interview or comment on its new partnership with HISD.
District leaders say the program will come at no cost to HISD, adding they will evaluate the instructional approach to inform future decisions about the program.
The district added in its announcement, “Houston ISD teachers will remain the teachers of record, and the pilot does not replace classroom teachers.”
Houston ISD has shared minimal details about how the students will spend their day at Gregg, Martinez and the other “Future 2” schools. The district’s 2026-27 budget allocated $500,000 per school in the pilot program, totaling a $4.5 million investment by the state’s largest school district, which has been under the control of the Texas Education Agency since 2023 because one of its high schools received a string of failing academic ratings from the state.
Bianca Seward/Houston Public Media
Clemente Martinez Elementary is a Houston ISD campus.
In a recent interview with Craig Cohen of Houston Matters, state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles shared that students will dedicate the morning to traditional classes – reading, math and science – and then transition to an afternoon devoted to “experience and activities.” He added the district plans to send Future 2 school students on field trips every three weeks.
“I’ll just read a few of the experiences and activities: Playing chess, rock climbing, dining at a restaurant, visit a museum, visit college campus, travel abroad, write a pen pal, volunteer ropes course, escape room, go camping, grocery shopping,” Miles said.
Pushback against “TimeBack”
On its website, Alpha School describes the “TimeBack” program as a way to – quite literally – give time back to students. The two-hour learning model, formally known as “2 Hour Learning,” was rebranded in 2025 as a $100 million project to build an AI platform that helps students learn “10x faster than traditional classrooms,” the company states. Its website says the team behind TimeBack is made up of world-class scientists, AI large model experts and cloud app developers.
There are minimal details on Alpha’s website about how the two hours are actually spent, but a short list indicates the window will utilize “motivation-drive XP systems” that would gamify lessons while also making “entire academic years broken into visible, actionable goals.”
However, the program has received criticism for overstating its effectiveness.
When Unbound Academy and Unbound Academic, public charter schools affiliated with Alpha that use its two-hour learning model, applied for charter applications in Arkansas and Pennsylvania, respectively, the proposals were rejected. Last year, the Pennsylvania Department of Education reported Unbound Academic “lacks the capability, in terms of both support and planning, to provide comprehensive learning experiences to students” and found the evidence in Unbound Academic’s application to support the claims its two-hour AI model improves student performances did not include results that could be translated or compared to results for other Pennsylvania schools.
In 2024, Tina Moore, while serving on Arkansas’ state board of education, voted to deny Unbound Academy’s application for a charter license, saying its presentation “did not demonstrate a viable plan, relevant experience or readiness to provide a high-quality learning environment for Arkansas students.”
Alpha operated a dozen campuses this year. Its founder, MacKenzie Price, told Axios the program was quickly scaling to reach 50 campuses.