Stride Stock

Stride, Inc. (Stride) operates as an education services company that provides virtual and blended learning.

The company’s technology-based products and services enable the company’s clients to attract, enroll, educate, track progress, and support students. These products and services, spanning curriculum, systems, instruction, and support services are designed to help learners of all ages reach their full potential through inspired teaching and personalized learning. The company’s clients are primarily public and private schools, school districts, and charter boards. Additionally, the company offers solutions to employers, government agencies and consumers.

The company offers a wide range of individual products and services, as well as customized solutions, such as the company’s most comprehensive school-as-a-service offering, which supports the company’s clients in operating full-time virtual or blended schools.

The company’s solutions address two growing markets: General Education and Career Learning.

Products and services for the General Education market are predominantly focused on core subjects, including math, English, science and history, for kindergarten through twelfth grade students to help build a common foundation of knowledge. These programs provide an alternative to traditional ‘brick-and-mortar’ school options and address a range of student needs, including safety concerns, increased academic support, scheduling flexibility, physical/health restrictions or advanced learning. Products and services are sold as a comprehensive school-as-a-service offering or à la carte.

Career Learning products and services are focused on developing skills to enter and succeed in careers in high-growth, in-demand industries—including information technology, healthcare and general business. Through the company’s Career Learning programs, the company offers middle and high school students content pathways that include job-ready skills and work experiences and, for high school students, that can lead toward an industry certification and/or college credits. Like General Education products and services, the products and services for the Career Learning market are sold as a comprehensive school-as-a-service offering or à la carte. Through the company’s Adult Learning brands, the company also offers in-person and remote immersive programs and self-paced, structured online Career Learning programs to adult learners in software engineering, healthcare, and medical fields, as well as providing staffing and talent development services to employers. These programs are offered directly to consumers, as well as to employers and government agencies.

For both the General Education and Career Learning markets, the majority of revenue is derived from the company’s comprehensive school-as-a-service offering, which includes an integrated package of curriculum, technology systems, instruction, and support services that the company administers on behalf of the company’s customers.

Lines of Revenue

General Education

Products and services for the General Education market are predominantly focused on core subjects, including math, English, science and history, for kindergarten through twelfth grade students to help build a common foundation of knowledge. These programs provide an alternative to traditional school options and address a range of student needs, including safety concerns, increased academic support, scheduling flexibility, physical/health restrictions or advanced learning. Products and services are sold as a comprehensive school-as-a-service offering or à la carte.

Career Learning

Career Learning products and services are focused on developing skills to enter and succeed in careers in high-growth, in-demand industries—including information technology, healthcare and general business. The company provides middle and high school students with Career Learning programs that complement their core general education coursework in math, English, science and history. Stride offers multiple career pathways supported by a diverse catalog of Career Learning courses. The middle school program exposes students to a variety of career options and introduces career skill development. In high school, students may engage in industry content pathway courses, project-based learning in virtual teams, and career development services. High school students have the opportunity to progress toward certifications, connect with industry professionals, earn college credits while in high school, and participate in job shadowing and/or work-based learning experiences that facilitate success in today’s digital, tech-enabled economy. A student enrolled in a school that offers Stride’s General Education program may elect to take Career Learning courses, but that student and the associated revenue is reported as a General Education enrollment and General Education revenue. A student and the associated revenue is counted as a Career Learning enrollment or Career Learning revenue only if the student is enrolled in a Career Learning program or school.

Like General Education products and services, the products and services for the Career Learning market are sold as a comprehensive school-as-a-service offering or à la carte. The company also offers focused post-secondary career learning programs to adult learners, through the company’s Galvanize, Tech Elevator, and MedCerts brands. These include skills training for the software engineering, healthcare, and medical fields, as well as staffing and talent development services to employers. These programs are offered directly to consumers, as well as to employers and government agencies.

Sales Channels

Virtual and Blended Schools

The Virtual and Blended Public Schools the company serves offer an integrated package of systems, services, products, and professional expertise that the company administers to support a virtual or blended public school. Customers of these programs can obtain the administrative support, information technology, academic support services, online curriculum, learning system platforms and instructional services under the terms of a negotiated service and product agreement. The company provides its school-as-a-service offerings to virtual and blended public charter schools and school districts. These contracts are negotiated with, and approved by, the governing authorities of the customer. The duration of these service and product agreements are typically greater than five years, and most provide for automatic renewals absent a customer notification of non-renewal. During any fiscal year, the company may enter into new agreements, receive non-automatic renewal notices, negotiate replacement agreements, terminate such agreements or receive notice of termination, or customers may transition a school to a different offering. The governing boards may also establish school policies and other terms and conditions over the course of a contract, such as enrollment parameters. The authorizers who issue the charters to the company’s school-as-a-service customers can renew, revoke, or modify those charters as well.

The majority of the company’s revenue is derived from these school-as-a-service agreements with the governing authorities of the public schools the company serve. In addition to providing a comprehensive course catalog, related books and physical materials, a learning management system for online learning, and, in certain cases, student computers, the company offers these schools a variety of administrative support, technology and academic support services. Full time virtual and blended school students access online lessons over the internet and utilize offline learning materials the company provides. Students receive assignments, complete lessons, take assessments, and are instructed by teachers with whom they interact via email, telephonically, in synchronous virtual classroom environments, and sometimes face to face. In either case, for parents who believe their child is not thriving in their current school or for students and families who require time or location flexibility in their schooling, virtual and blended public schools can provide a compelling choice. Students attending many of these schools are also provided the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of school activities, including field trips, service-learning opportunities, honor societies, and clubs. In addition to school level activities, the company sponsors a wide variety of extracurricular activities on a national basis, such as clubs, contests and college and career planning sessions.

In addition to the company’s full time virtual programs, the company offers a variety of support services and sells the company’s products to blended schools, which are schools that combine online and face to face instruction for students in a variety of ways with varying amounts of time spent by students in a physical learning center. In contrast to a typical brick and mortar public school, blended schools can provide a greater selection of available courses, increased opportunities for self-paced, individualized instruction and greater scheduling flexibility. These blended programs bring students and teachers physically together more often than a purely online program. In some blended schools the company supports, students attend a learning center on a part time basis, where they receive face to face instruction, in addition to their online virtual curriculum and instruction.

Learning Solutions

The company’s Learning Solutions sales channel distributes the company’s software and services to schools and school districts across the U.S.

To address the growing need for digital solutions and the emerging need for comprehensive virtual solutions, the company’s Learning Solutions team provides curriculum and technology solutions, packaged in a portfolio of flexible learning and delivery models mapped to specific student and/or district needs. This portfolio approach provides a continuum of delivery models, from full time programs to individual course sales and supplemental options that can be used in traditional classrooms to differentiate instruction. The company’s Learning Solutions team strives to partner with public schools and school districts, primarily in the U.S., to provide more options and better tools to empower teachers to improve student achievement through personalized learning in traditional, blended and online learning environments and to provide comprehensive support for teachers and administrators to deliver effective virtual and blended instructions.

Private Programs

The company also operates tuition-based private schools that meet a range of student needs from individual course credit recovery to college preparatory programs. These programs address students and families in the states in which the company does not offer a free public option, as well as students looking for additional flexibility. Additionally, many families can use education savings accounts, tax credits and vouchers to attend these schools for low or no cost. The company also pursues international opportunities where there is significant demand for quality online education. The company’s international students are typically from expatriate families who wish to study in English and foreign students who desire a U.S. high school diploma. In addition, the company has entered into agreements that enable the company to distribute its products and services to the company’s international and domestic school partners who use the company’s courses to provide broad elective offerings and dual diploma programs.

Consumer Sales

The company also offers individual online courses and supplemental educational products directly to families. These purchasers desire to educate their children as homeschoolers, outside of the traditional school system or to supplement their child’s existing public or private school education without the aid of an online teacher. Customers of the company’s consumer products have the option of purchasing a complete curriculum, individual courses, or a variety of other supplemental products, covering various subjects depending on their child’s needs. Typical applications include summer school course work, home-schooling, enrichment, and educational supplements.

Adult Learning

The company offers adult learning training programs through Galvanize, Tech Elevator, and MedCerts, which provide programs that address the skills gap facing companies in the information technology and healthcare sectors. The company offers in-person and remote immersive full-time software engineering programs designed for adult learners looking to advance their technology careers by providing such learners with skills and real-world experiences. MedCerts provides self-paced, fully online structured training programs that lead to certifications in the healthcare field. These brands also work directly with enterprises to create customized, tailored education plans to help companies train, upskill, and reskill their employees.

Business Strategy

The company’s strategy consists of the following key elements: affecting better student outcomes; improving student retention in the company’s school-as-a-service offerings; growing career learning enrollments and expanding career training market; introducing new and improved products and services; increasing enrollments at existing virtual and blended public schools; expanding virtual and blended public school presence into additional states and cities; growing the company’s learning solutions sales channel; adding enrollments in the company’s private schools; developing additional channels through which to deliver the company’s learning systems; and pursuing strategic partnerships and acquisitions. In 2018, the company partnered with Southern New Hampshire University to invest in the development of degree-granting programs for online teaching.

Products and Services

The company continues to invest in curriculum and technology to educate students more effectively and efficiently. Much of the company’s investment has been in the development of improved functionality of the company’s curriculum and systems. Areas of focus include integration and user experience—making sure that all of the company’s systems and solutions are easy for teachers, administrators, students, and parents to use; mobile enabled products; portability—making sure that the company’s platforms integrate with and onto third-party platforms; features, which personalize learning for all students the company serves; courses that are flexible enough to provide assistance to struggling students; reading and oral fluency scoring; alignment with state standards; built-in tutoring and support functionality; and a virtual learning platform, which supports the scheduling and delivery of instruction, tracking of attendance, recording of instructional sessions, and allows student group work.

The company provides various products and services to customers on an individual basis, as well as customized solutions, including the company’s comprehensive school-as-a-service offering which supports the company’s customers in operating full-time virtual or blended schools. The company continues to expand upon its personalized learning model, improve the user experience of the company’s products, and develop tools and partnerships to more effectively engage and serve students, teachers, administrators, and adult learners.

Curriculum and Content

The company’s customers can select from hundreds of high-quality, engaging, online coursework and content, as well as many state-customized versions of those courses, electives, and instructional supports. The company has built core courses with the guidance and recommendations of leading educational organizations at the national and state levels. State standards continue to evolve, and the company invests in its curriculum to meet these changing requirements. Additionally, through the company’s Galvanize, Tech Elevator and MedCerts brands, the company has high-quality, engaging, online coursework and content in information technology and healthcare.

Systems

The company has established a secure and reliable technology platform, which integrates proprietary and third-party systems to provide a high-quality educational environment and gives the company the capability to grow the company’s customer programs and enrollment. The company’s end-to-end platform includes content management, learning management, student information, data reporting and analytics, and various support systems that allow customers to provide a high-quality, and personalized educational experience for students. À la carte offerings can provide curriculum and content hosting on customers’ learning management systems, or integrate with customers’ student information systems.

Instructional Services

The company offers a broad range of instructional services that include customer support for instructional teams, including recruitment of state certified teachers, training in research-based online instruction methods and systems, oversight and evaluation services, and ongoing professional development. Stride also provides training options to support teachers and parents to meet students’ learning needs. The company’s range of training options are designed to enhance skills needed to teach using an online learning platform, and include hands-on training, on-demand courses, and support materials.

Support Services

The company offers a broad range of support services, including marketing and enrollment (e.g., supporting prospective students through the admission process), assessment management, administrative support (e.g., budget proposals, financial reporting, and student data reporting), and technology and materials support (e.g., providing student computers, offline learning kits, internet access and technology support services).

Academic Performance

The company’s fundamental goal for every child who enrolls in a school that has purchased the company’s school-as-a-service offering, is to improve their academic performance. With the implementation of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (‘ESSA’) beginning with the 2017-18 school year, each of the states in which the company supports virtual and blended public schools has been given the authority to develop a school accountability plan within the confines of a broad federal ESSA framework based on their own conception of the best means to advance college and career readiness. The ESSA requires states to utilize four academic-related indicators in their accountability plans to measure school and student performance: academic achievement, student growth in reading and math, graduation rate, and progress in achieving English language proficiency. The states were given discretion on the weight to give to each indicator and how to apply them. Most of the state ESSA plans submitted in 2017 to the U.S. Department of Education use some form of summative rating method to describe school performance, such as conferring an A-F grade or using a ranking system having a 1-10 scale. A significant new element of this education law is a requirement for states to adopt at least one non-academic indicator in their state’s accountability system to measure ‘school quality or student success,’ often called the ‘fifth’ indicator. Unlike No Child Left Behind where the only measure of school performance was an Annual Yearly Progress report, there are a wide range of non-academic options enumerated in the ESSA that the states can adopt to advance their own ‘school quality or student success’ accountability objectives. The states may include measures of student engagement, educator engagement, student access to and completion of advanced coursework, post-secondary readiness, school climate and safety, and any other indicator a state may choose for this purpose. For example, a post-secondary readiness accountability indicator can include student participation in and completion of a CTE program of study, or access to dual credit programs. Similarly, a student engagement indicator may focus on teacher observations or ratings that demonstrate improvements in this area.

The company shares the view taken by many states that assessing a student by his or her learning growth is a more accurate indicator of school and student performance than attaining a static proficiency score. This approach is now reflected in the ESSA as well. All of the company’s school-as-a-service offerings administer state or nationally recognized assessments to measure student achievement and growth during the school year, to prepare students for state assessments and to guide instruction. To ensure all schools are utilizing best practices learned from other successful school clients and from other high performing schools across the country, the company has developed an academic framework that addresses teacher preparation, delivery of instruction, and student assessment. Effective instruction is informed by and evaluated based on student level data. As part of the academic framework, schools implement plans to collect student level data throughout the year through the use of norm-referenced growth measures at least three times per year, along with strategically placed formative interims, benchmarks, and summative assessments.

In addition to the complexities involved in measuring academic performance of students, the virtual and blended public schools the company serves face unique challenges impacting academic success not necessarily encountered to the same extent by traditional brick and mortar schools. These challenges include students who enter behind grade level or under credited, high student mobility, lack of control over the student learning environment and higher than average percentages of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch in many states.

The company provides more synchronous sessions for at-risk students based on data driven instruction that provides for targeted teacher intervention to assist students with lesson challenges.

Intellectual Property

The company’s patent portfolio includes five U.S.-issued patents and one foreign-issued patents directed towards various aspects of the company’s educational products and offerings. Three of the U.S.-issued patents encompass the company’s system and methods of virtual schooling and online foreign language instruction. The other two U.S.-issued patents and the foreign-issued patent encompass the company’s system and method for producing, delivering and managing educational material.

The company owns copyrights related to the lessons contained in the courses that comprise the company’s proprietary curriculum. The company also has obtained federal, state and foreign registrations for numerous trademarks that are related to the company’s offerings, and the company has applied to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register certain new trademarks.

Regulation

Five primary federal laws are directly applicable to the day-to-day provision of educational services the company provides to virtual and blended public schools: Every Student Succeeds Act; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act; Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act; the Communications Decency Act of 1996; and Other Federal Laws.

There are also other federal laws and regulations that affect other aspects of the company’s business, such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (‘COPPA’), which imposes certain parental notice and other requirements on the company that are directed to children under 13 years of age who access the web-based schools the company manages. In addition, the Children’s Internet Protection Act requires that school districts that receive certain types of federal funding must ensure that they have technology which blocks or filters certain material from being accessed through the Internet. The company has developed procedures by which computers that the company ships to students meet this requirement. Many other federal and state laws, such as deceptive trade practices laws, the Lanham Act and others apply to the company, just as they do to other businesses.

Research and Development Costs

The company’s research and development costs totaled $15.5 million for the year ended June 30, 2023.

Competition

The company competes primarily with companies that provide online curriculum and school support services to K-12 virtual and blended public schools and school districts, including those with a career orientation. These companies include Pearson PLC (Connections Academy), Lincoln Learning Solutions, StrongMind, Pansophic Learning, Inspire Charter Schools, and Charter Schools USA; and state administered online programs, among others. The company also faces competition from digital and print curriculum developers. The digital curriculum providers include Curriculum Associates, Imagine Learning LLC, Edmentum Inc., Dreambox Learning, Inc., and traditional textbook publishers, such as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw Hill. Other competing digital curriculum providers, including Khan Academy, Duolingo, IXL Learning, Inc. and Renaissance Learning, Inc., offer a different pricing model, which provides curriculum at a lower cost (sometimes free) but may charge for additional products or services. The company also competes with institutions, such as The Laurel Springs School (Spring Education Group) and Penn Foster Inc. for online private pay school students. Additionally, the company’s Adult Learning offerings compete with other in-person and remote immersive programs and self-paced online training programs. These include General Assembly (a subsidiary of Adecco), Bloom Institute of Technology, Carrus, Inc., and Education to Go (a subsidiary of Cengage Learning), among others.

History

Stride, Inc. was founded in 2000.