Talk:Alpha School

Proposed merge of Alpha High School into Alpha School

Non-notable individual school should be merged into the school network page   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 08:59, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree.

This came about in April 2025, an effort to split/clarify the Alpha School(s) that are associated with Joe Liemandt's companies, and Alpha High School (Gresham, Oregon). If you look at the revision history for the Oregon school's topic in April, you can see that another editor and I were untangling the two.

However, in the process we created the issue you're seeing now, and I added notes to both of the articles you propose to merge, each pointing to the other to reduce confusion. I believe we should've merged these together back in April, but it just didn't get done. None of the individual schools in the Alpha School enterprise warrant their own article.

Wikipedian-in-Waiting (talk) 17:16, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for filling me in because I was unable to decipher why the split occurred earlier. I went ahead and merged it. I found the two news articles of interest. I left the bike park project out of the merge.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 18:02, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Looking good - thank you! Wikipedian-in-Waiting (talk) 18:55, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Cognia accreditation

Summary

Alpha School was accredited by Cognia. I'm working for Alpha School; we were certified on March 31, 2025 and this certification is valid until June 30, 2031. The Wikipedia page needs to be updated to reflect this important accomplishment.

Supporting links

- Cognia Certificate - Alpha School

- Alpha Schools | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library

- Alpha School: Accreditation Boosts Excellence in a New Pedagogical Approach - Cognia

- Cognia - Accreditation Registry Search (search for Alpha School)

Proposed edit

In the 'Instructional model' section, before the sentence that starts with 'Critics note that...', add:

'In March 2025, the Alpha School network received systemwide accreditation from Cognia, a global non-profit school improvement and accrediting organization.' Cristi at Alpha (talk) 19:21, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

 Done Thank you for disclosing your conflict of interest this time. This page has other information you'll find useful, if you haven't seen it already: Conflict of interest.

On the Alpha School article, I added a note about the accreditation with a wikilink to Cognia, and cited a news article instead of your linked promotional pages.

Wikipedian-in-Waiting (talk) 21:47, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi,

The school doesn't say it is accredited by Cognia. The school is accredited by Cognia. I provided third party proof on this, especially the links on the Cognia website itself. If you need something else to prove this, let me know.

Please update the wording appropriately.

Thank you. Cristi at Alpha (talk) 13:10, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia links to disinterested reporting, not company promotional material. The reporting I cited from the Austin American-Statesman says, "The school says it is accredited by Cognia." If you would like to discuss this further, please set up your Talk page as a COI (I gave you the link earlier) and we can discuss it there. Wikipedian-in-Waiting (talk) 13:51, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

It looks like this was already resolved, but for future reference:

1. The school's claim of accreditation seems to fall under WP:ABOUTSELF, wherein straight factual claims that don't require interpretation can be sourced from the subject's self-published materials. This might be barred if there was reasonable doubt as to the claim's authenticity, but...

2. The above editor also linked to the Cognia accreditation database, which is the authoritative source for the factual claim, and is a third-party relative to the school. As I understand it, it is also an acceptable source for a factual claim under WP:PRIMARY. Ahhwhereami (talk) 12:53, 3 May 2026 (UTC)