← Back to LRN filing summaryThis is the extracted source text from the SEC filing. Formatting may differ from the original document.
Company Overview
We are a technology company providing an educational platform to deliver online learning to students throughout the U.S. Our platform hosts products and services 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. Our clients are primarily public and
4
Table of Contents
private schools, school districts, and charter boards. Additionally, we provide solutions to employers, government agencies and consumers.
We provide a wide range of products and services across our platform with the ability to deliver customized solutions. Our comprehensive school-as-a-service offering supports our clients in operating full-time virtual schools in the K-12 market. Together with our network of online schools, Stride has served millions of students with our products and services.
Our platform addresses two markets in the K-12 space: General Education and Career Learning. Products and services for the General Education market are predominantly focused on core subjects 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 as stand-alone products and services.
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 our Career Learning programs, we provide 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 as stand-alone products and services.
Through our Adult Learning business, we provide training programs leading to certifications in high-demand, growing industries like healthcare and technology. This business also delivers talent development programs to employers and government agencies.
For both the General Education and Career Learning markets, the majority of revenue is derived from our comprehensive school-as-a-service offering, which includes an integrated package of curriculum, technology systems, instruction, and support services that we administer on behalf of our customers. The average duration of the agreements for our school-as-a-service offering is greater than five years, and most provide for automatic renewals absent a customer notification of non-renewal.
Our History
We were founded in 2000 to utilize advances in technology to provide children with access to a high quality education regardless of their geographic location or socioeconomic background.
In September 2001, we introduced our kindergarten through 2nd grade offering and subsequently added new grades and new school clients in additional states. We also opened online private schools to reach students worldwide.
During the 2025-2026 school year, we provided our school-as-a-service offering to 92 schools in 31 states and the District of Columbia in the General Education market, and 57 schools or programs in 25 states and the District of Columbia in the Career Learning market.
In 2020, we significantly expanded our Career Learning opportunity by acquiring three adult learning companies, Galvanize, Tech Elevator, and MedCerts. These Adult Learning brands deliver training in software engineering and allied healthcare to consumers and enterprises.
Our Market
The U.S. market for K-12 education is large, and school choice and alternative educational options continue to gain share and acceptance. For example:
● A January 2026 survey by the National School Choice Awareness Foundation found that 75% of parents had considered, searched for, or enrolled at least one of their children in a new or different school within the past year the highest level recorded in five years. Of those who enrolled in a new or different school, enrollment in full-time online schools grew from 10% to 15%.
5
Table of Contents
● In May 2026, the National Home Education Research Institute estimated that there were approximately 3.4 million home educated students in the United States during School Year 2024-2025. In spring 2019, the estimated number of students was 2.5 million, and estimates showed home-educated student enrollments growing by 2 - 8% per year over the last several years.
● August 2025 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that demand for occupations that require non-degree post-secondary education will grow 5.1% by 2034, a faster rate than overall occupations.
Market Opportunity
Increasingly more parents are seeking viable education options for their children, including access to educational platforms that can deliver technology-enriched educational content that improves student outcomes. The traditional education model has not fully utilized technology and digital content. We anticipate that our customers’ full-time online public schools will meet the needs of a small portion of the overall United States K-12 student population, but the expansion of our educational platform with new products and services can address a much larger and growing opportunity for us. There continues to be strong demand for full-time virtual education options driven by individual needs and desires to address technology, safety, disabilities, flexibility, athletes, career pathways, supplemental learning, medical needs, and frequent movers, just to list a few examples. Our individualized learning approach allows students to optimize their educational experience and, therefore, their chances of achieving their goals, regardless of their unique challenges.
The pandemic changed the awareness and acceptance of online learning, and although we expect that most students in the United States will be educated in traditional school settings, we believe that a fundamental shift has taken place, and that states and districts will continue to expand virtual solutions. To meet this need, we offer full-service programs and stand-alone products and services that appeal to parents and students across the K-12 market.
We are seeing growth in careers requiring non-degree post-secondary credentials or certifications and it is anticipated that demand for these lower cost solutions will be strong. Additionally, we believe recruiting and hiring for entry-level skilled positions remains a challenge for companies. To address this challenge, companies are partnering with training providers to prepare candidates for entry-level positions as well as to upskill their existing workforce.
Our Lines of Revenue
General Education
General Education products and services 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. Products and services are delivered as a comprehensive school-as-a-service offering for schools or as stand-alone products and services. A student enrolled in a school that offers Stride’s General Education program may elect to take career courses, but that student and the associated revenue is reported as a General Education enrollment and General Education revenue.
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. We provide middle and high school students with Career Learning programs that complement their core general education coursework. Stride offers multiple career pathways through a broad catalog of 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 is reported as a Career Learning enrollment and associated Career Learning revenue only if the student is enrolled in a Career Learning program. Like General Education products and services, the products and services for Career Learning are sold as a comprehensive school-as-a-service offering or as stand-alone products and services.
6
Table of Contents
We also provide focused post-secondary career learning programs to adult learners, for the software engineering, healthcare, and medical fields. These programs are sold directly to consumers, employers and government agencies.
Sales Channels
Virtual Schools
Our educational platform can be offered in an integrated package of systems, services, products, and professional expertise to support a virtual public school. Customers of these programs can obtain administrative support, information technology, academic support services, online curriculum, learning systems and instructional services under the terms of negotiated service and product agreements. These contracts are negotiated with, and approved by, the governing authorities of the customer. During any fiscal year, the Company may enter into new agreements, receive non-automatic renewal notices, negotiate replacement agreements, terminate such agreements or receive notices 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 our school-as-a-service customers can renew, revoke, or modify those charters as well.
The majority of our revenue is derived from these school-as-a-service service agreements with the governing authorities of our public school partners. In addition to providing a comprehensive course catalog, related books and physical materials, a learning management system (“LMS”) for online learning, and, in certain cases, student computers, we also provide 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 we provide. 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.
Traditional School Districts
We also distribute our educational platform to schools and school districts across the U.S. and provide access to our digital content, learning software, teachers and support services. Public schools and school districts are increasingly adopting digital educational solutions to augment teaching practices, launch new learning models, cost effectively expand course offerings, provide schedule flexibility, improve student engagement, increase graduation rates, replace textbooks, and retain students. State education funds traditionally allocated for textbook and print materials have also been authorized for the purchase of digital content, including online courses, and in some cases mandated access to online courses.
Consumer Sales
We provide tuition-based online 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 we do 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. We also pursue international opportunities where we believe there is significant demand for quality online education. Our 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, we have entered into agreements that enable us to distribute our products and services to our international and domestic school partners who use our courses to provide broad elective offerings and dual diploma programs.
Our educational platform also offers the ability to deliver products and services directly to families. These purchasers desire to offer supplemental educational products to further their child’s existing public or private school education. Customers of our consumer products have the option of purchasing complete curriculum, individual courses, tutoring, career learning products, 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.
We provide adult learning programs that address the skills gap facing companies in the information technology and healthcare sectors. We provide 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. Our allied health programs provide self-paced, fully online structured training programs that lead to
7
Table of Contents
certifications in the healthcare field. We can also provide these programs directly to enterprises to create customized, tailored education plans to help companies train, upskill, and reskill their employees.
Business Strategy
We are committed to maximizing every learner’s potential by personalizing their educational experience, delivering a quality education to schools and students, and supporting our customers in their quest to improve academic outcomes and prepare them for college and future careers. To further those objectives, we continue to make investments in our platforms to improve the effectiveness of our school workforce, develop new instructional approaches, to increase engagement, improve our systems and security, and to enable us to expand the markets we can serve. This strategy consists of the following key elements:
● Grow Enrollments.
● Introduce New and Improved Products and Services.
● Improve Student Outcomes.
● Improve Retention.
Key Products and Services
We continue to invest in our educational platform to educate students more effectively and efficiently. Much of our investment has been in the development of improved functionality of our curriculum and technology systems. Areas of focus include: (i) integration and user experience; (ii) mobile enabled products; (iii) portability; (iv) personalization; (v) flexibility; (vi) reading and oral fluency scoring; (vii) state standard alignment; (viii) tutoring & support; and (ix) automated and artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted learning.
We continue to expand upon our personalized learning model, improve the user experience of our products, and develop tools and partnerships to more effectively engage and serve students, teachers, administrators, and adult learners.
Technology Platform
We continue to focus on establishing a secure and reliable technology platform, which integrates proprietary and industry-standard third-party systems to provide a high-quality educational environment and gives us the capability to grow our customer programs and enrollment. Our 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. Our platform can be used to deliver our products and services in a number of implementation models, including our school-as-a-service offering, integration with existing school LMSs, and to deliver stand-alone offerings to consumers.
Our platform, along with our back-office support systems, runs on cloud infrastructure from Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) and Microsoft Azure. Our key systems leverage a proprietary technology architecture that allows us to develop iterative, agile and customizable solutions to meet both present and future market needs. Our systems run 7 X 24 X 365 on world-class cloud infrastructure from AWS and Azure that operate in multiple availability zones. A business-centric information security program has also been adopted that is tailored to adjust to an ever-changing IT compliance and information security threat landscape. Our cybersecurity measures and policies are aligned with cybersecurity guidance from the National Institute of Standards & Technologies (NIST) across our cloud ecosystems. See Item 1C of Part I, “Cybersecurity,” for additional information.
Curriculum and Content
Our 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. We have built core courses with the guidance and recommendations of leading educational organizations at the national and state levels. Additionally, through our Adult Learning offerings, we have high-quality, engaging coursework and content in information technology and healthcare.
8
Table of Contents
Instructional Services
We provide 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. Our 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
We provide 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).
Our student recruitment and marketing team is focused on promoting the K-12 online education category and generating enrollments for our virtual school customers. This is achieved by creating awareness and conversion among families with K-12 students through integrated marketing campaigns that include offline and digital media, as well as web assets. These campaigns are continuously optimized using data analytics and market research. The marketing team also assists in enhancing and reducing friction in the onboarding experience of new students to online schooling. Additionally, our marketing team is working to ensure awareness and conversion in our adult learning offerings.
Public Affairs and School Development
We seek to increase public awareness of the educational and fiscal benefits of our online learning. We receive numerous inquiries from school districts, legislators, public charter school boards, community leaders, state departments of education, educators and parents who express the desire to have a choice in public school options. Our public affairs and school development teams work together with these interested parties to identify and pursue opportunities to expand the use of our products and services in new and existing jurisdictions.
Operations
We are responsible for the sourcing, assembly and delivery of school supplies and materials for our school-as-a-service offerings. We have developed strong relationships with partners allowing us to source goods at favorable price, quality and service levels. Our fulfillment partner stores our inventory, assembles our learning kits and ships the kits to students. We have invested in systems, including our Order Management System, to automatically translate the curriculum selected by each enrolled student into a personalized order to fulfill the corresponding new or refurbished learning kits to ship to each student through an end to end efficient and scalable warehousing and fulfillment operation.
Academic Performance
Our fundamental goal for every child who enrolls in our school-as-a-service offerings is to meet the needs of the family, which often includes improving academic performance. While many students come to us behind grade level or under credited, we continually strive to achieve that objective by undertaking new initiatives and improving existing programs that support students and families. To monitor student learning progress during the school year, we use multiple equivalent assessments at the lesson, unit and semester level to provide intervention points to improve outcomes.
Competition
As a general matter, we face varying degrees of competition from a variety of education companies because the scope of our offerings and the customers we serve encompass many separate and distinct segments of the education business. We compete primarily with companies that provide online curriculum and school support services to K-12 virtual and blended public schools, including Pearson PLC (Connections Academy), Lincoln Learning Solutions, StrongMind, Pansophic Learning, Inspire Charter Schools, and Charter Schools USA, and state administered online programs, among others. We also face competition from digital and print curriculum providers including Curriculum Associates, Imagine Learning LLC, Edmentum Inc., Discovery Education, and traditional textbook publishers such as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw Hill. Other competing digital curriculum providers, including Khan Academy, Duolingo, IXL
9
Table of Contents
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. We also compete with institutions such as The Laurel Springs School (Spring Education Group) and Penn Foster Inc. for online private pay school students. Additionally, our Adult Learning offerings compete with other in-person and remote immersive programs and self-paced online training programs including General Assembly (a subsidiary of Adecco), Bloom Institute of Technology, Penn Foster Inc. and Education to Go (a subsidiary of Cengage Learning), among others.
We believe that the primary factors on which we compete are:
● extensive experience in, and understanding of, virtual education delivery;
● comprehensive suite of academic programs;
● customer satisfaction;
● quality of integrated curriculum and materials with an online delivery platform;
● qualifications, experience and training of teachers for online instruction;
● comprehensiveness of school management and student support services;
● integrated K-12 solutions, with components designed and built to work together;
● student outcomes for math and reading, graduation and job placement;
● scale and ability to leverage our assets across our business; and
● sophisticated government affairs knowledge and experience in virtual and blended school regulatory environments.
Parents in search of an alternative to their full-time local public school have a number of alternatives beyond virtual schools, including private schools, public charter schools and home schooling. In our private schools, we compete for students seeking an English-based K-12 education worldwide. In addition, our educational platform consists of components that face competition from many different types of education companies, such as traditional textbook publishers, test and assessment firms and private education management companies. These learning systems are designed to operate domestically and internationally, and thus, the geographic market for many of our products and services is global and indeterminate in size. Finally, our Adult Learning brands compete with post-secondary providers, both public and private, as well as other certificate and credential providers. They also compete with upskilling and reskilling training programs developed in house by employers.
Other Information
Intellectual Property
We continue to invest in our intellectual property through internal development and by acquisitions as we aim to offer more courses for new grades and expand into adjacent education markets, both in the United States and overseas. Through acquisitions, we have also obtained curriculum, patents and trademarks that expand our portfolio of educational products and services. We continue to add features and tools to our proprietary learning platform and support systems to assist teachers and students and improve educational outcomes, such as adaptive learning technologies. These intellectual property assets are critical to our success and we avail ourselves of the full protections provided under the patent, copyright, trademark and trade secrets laws.
Our patent portfolio includes four U.S.-issued patents and one foreign-issued patent directed towards various aspects of our educational products and offerings. Two of the U.S.-issued patents encompass our online foreign language instruction. The other two U.S.-issued patents and the foreign-issued patent encompass our system and method for producing, delivering and managing educational material.
We own copyrights related to the lessons contained in the courses that comprise our proprietary curriculum. We also have obtained federal, state and foreign registrations for numerous trademarks that are related to our offerings, and we have applied to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register certain new trademarks.
We grant licenses to individuals and schools to use our software and access our online learning systems. These licenses are intended to protect our ownership and the confidentiality of the embedded information and technology contained in our software and systems.
10
Table of Contents
We also own many of the trademarks and service marks that we use as part of the student recruitment and branding services we provide to schools. Those marks are licensed to the schools for use during the term of the products and services agreements.
Our employees, contractors and other parties with access to our confidential information sign agreements that prohibit the unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary rights, information and technology.
Human Capital Resources
As of June 30, 2026, we had approximately 9,200 employees (including teachers), and substantially all of these employees are located in the United States. In total, we manage approximately 9,600 teachers, 5,900 of whom are employees and 3,700 who are employed by virtual or blended public schools that we manage under contracts with those schools but are not direct employees of Stride. None of our employees are represented by a labor union or covered by a collective bargaining agreement; however, certain schools we serve employ unionized teachers. We believe that our employee relations are good.
Our success depends in large part on continued employment of senior management and key personnel who can effectively operate our business, which is necessary in the highly regulated public education sector involving a publicly traded for-profit company. We believe a critical component to our success depends on the ability to attract, develop and retain key personnel.
We are an equal opportunity employer. We select and hire based on merit without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status, or any other basis prohibited by federal, state, or local law. In addition to our annual goals and individual job duties, performance appraisals take into consideration important behavioral attributes that align to our core values of Passion, Accountability, Customer Focus and Teamwork.
We support professional development opportunities that reflect our desire to ‘hire from within’ and to enhance employees’ skill sets in ways that improve their effectiveness and sense of fulfillment. We offer our employees many different professional development opportunities through job-related training and a number of benefit programs, including a Tuition Assistance Benefit, discount tuition options with several participating colleges and universities, and discounted options to access K-12 curriculum.
Corporate Information
Our website address is www.stridelearning.com.
Available Information
We make available, free of charge through the Investors section of our website (www.stridelearning.com), our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports filed pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), promptly after they are electronically filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). These filings are also available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov, which contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC. Our earnings conference calls are webcast live via the Investors section of our website. Information contained on our website is expressly not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report.
Regulation
We and the virtual and blended public schools that we serve are subject to regulation by and the laws of each of the states in which we operate. The state laws and regulations that impact our business are primarily those that authorize or restrict our ability to operate these schools, the applicable funding mechanisms for the schools and the increasing number of states with their own, unique privacy laws and laws regulating AI use. To the extent these schools receive federal funds,
11
Table of Contents
such as through a grant program or financial support dedicated for the education of low income families, these schools also become subject to additional federal regulation.
State Laws Authorizing or Restricting Virtual and Blended Public Schools. The authority to operate a virtual or blended public school is dependent on the laws and regulations of each state. Laws and regulations vary significantly from one state to the next and are constantly evolving. In states that have implemented specific legislation to support virtual and blended public schools, the schools are able to operate under these statutes. Other states provide for virtual and blended public schools under existing public charter school legislation or provide that school districts and/or state education agencies may authorize them. Some states do not currently have legislation that provides for virtual and blended public schools or have requirements that effectively prohibit such schools and, as a result, may require new legislation before virtual and blended public schools can open in the state.
Obtaining new legislation in the remaining states where we do not have virtual and blended public schools can be a protracted and uncertain process. When determining whether to pursue expansion into new states in which the laws are ambiguous, we research the relevant legislation and policy climate and then make an assessment of the perceived likelihood of success before deciding to commit resources.
State Laws and Regulations Applicable to Virtual and Blended Public Schools. A virtual or blended public school that fails to comply with the state laws and regulations applicable to it may be required to repay these funds and could become ineligible for receipt of future state funds. To be eligible for state funding, some states require that virtual and blended public schools be organized as not-for-profit charters exempt from taxation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended. The schools must then be organized exclusively for charitable educational purposes, and not for the benefit of private, for-profit management companies. The board or governing authority of the not-for-profit virtual or blended public school must retain ultimate accountability and control for the school’s operations to retain its tax-exempt status. It may not delegate its responsibility and accountability for the school’s operations. Our service agreements with these virtual and blended public schools are, therefore, structured to ensure the full independence of the not-for-profit board and preserve its arm’s-length ability to exercise its fiduciary obligations to operate a virtual or blended public school.
Laws and regulations affect many aspects of operating a virtual or blended public school. They can dictate the content and sequence of the curriculum, the methods for counting student enrollments for funding purposes, graduation requirements, use of approved textbooks, the length of the school year and the school day, the accessibility of curriculum and technology to students with disabilities, teacher to student ratios, specific credentialing of teachers and administrators, the assessment of student performance and any accountability requirements. In addition, a virtual or blended public school may be obligated to comply with states’ requirements to offer programs for specific populations, such as students at risk of dropping out of school, advanced and talented students, non-English speaking students, pre-kindergarten students and students with disabilities. Tutoring services and the use of technology may also be regulated. Other state laws and regulations may affect the school’s compulsory attendance requirements, treatment of absences and make-up work, and access by parents to student records and teaching and testing materials.
In addition to federal laws protecting the privacy of student education records, a growing number of states are enacting laws to protect the privacy of student data and to guard against its misuse. As a general matter, these laws are designed to prevent third-party vendors to schools from using student data for non-educational purposes and ensure the security of personally identifiable information. In addition, virtual or blended public schools may have to comply with state requirements that school campuses report various types of data as performance indicators of the success of the program. There is also a growing trend of laws and regulations being established to regulate the use of AI, including with respect to the education of children and the interaction of minors with AI.
States have laws and regulations concerning the certification, training, experience and continued professional development of teachers and staff with which a virtual or blended public school may be required to comply. There are also numerous laws pertaining to employee salaries and benefits, statewide teacher retirement systems, workers’ compensation, unemployment benefits and matters related to employment agreements and procedures for termination of school employees. State labor laws applicable to public-sector employees and their rights to organize may also apply to virtual charter schools, such as teachers they employ. A virtual or blended public school must also comply with requirements for performing criminal background checks on school staff, reporting criminal activity by school staff and reporting suspected child abuse. An increasing number of states are also enacting more general laws about personal information that apply regardless of whether the individual is a student.
12
Table of Contents
As with any public school, virtual and blended public schools must comply with state laws and regulations applicable to governmental entities, such as open meetings or sunshine laws, which may require the board of trustees of a virtual or blended public school to provide advance public notice of and hold its meetings open to the public unless an exception in the law allows an executive session. Failure to comply with these requirements may lead to personal civil and/or criminal penalties for board members or officers or the invalidation of actions taken during meetings that were not properly noticed and open to the public. Virtual and blended public schools must also comply with public information or open records laws, which require them to make school records available for public inspection, review and copying unless a specific exemption in the law applies. Additionally, laws pertaining to records privacy and retention and to standards for maintenance of records apply to virtual and blended public schools.
Other types of regulation applicable to virtual and blended public schools include restrictions on the use of public funds, the types of investments made with public funds, accounting and financial management, and marketing practices.
There remains uncertainty about the extent to which virtual and blended public schools we serve may be required to comply with state laws and regulations applicable to traditional public schools because the concept of virtual and blended public schools is still evolving, especially as technology advances. Although we receive state funds indirectly, according to the terms of each service agreement with the local public school entity, our receipt of state funds subjects us to extensive state regulation and scrutiny. States routinely conduct audits of these schools, to verify enrollment, attendance, information technology security, fiscal accountability, special education services and other regulatory issues. While we may believe that a virtual public school or blended school we serve is compliant with state law, an agency’s different interpretation of law in a particular state, or the application of facts to such law, could result in findings of non-compliance, potentially affecting future funding or repayment of past funding.
Regulations Restricting Virtual and Blended Public School Growth and Funding. As a public schooling alternative, some state and regulatory authorities have elected to proceed cautiously with virtual and blended public schools. Statutes or regulations that hinder our ability to serve certain jurisdictions include: restrictions on student eligibility, such as mandating attendance at a traditional public school prior to enrolling in a virtual or blended public school; caps on the total number of students in a virtual or blended public school; restrictions on grade levels served; geographic limitations on enrollments; fixing the percentage of per pupil funding that must be paid to teachers; states’ specific curriculum requirements; limits on the number of charters that can be granted in a state; and requirements to obtain approval from a student’s resident school district.
Funding regulations for virtual public schools and blended schools can take a variety of forms. These regulations include: (i) attendance—some state daily attendance rules were designed for traditional classroom procedures, and applying them to track daily attendance and truancy in an online setting can cause disputes to arise over interpretation and funding; (ii) enrollment eligibility—some states place restrictions on the students seeking to enroll in virtual and blended public schools, resulting in lower aggregate funding levels; (iii) teacher contact time—some states have regulations that specify minimum levels of teacher-student face-to-face time; and (iv) completion of course work. These regulations can create logistical challenges for statewide virtual and blended public schools, reduce funding and eliminate some of the economic, academic and technological advantages of virtual learning.
Federal and State Grants. We have worked with some entities to secure public and grant funding that flows to virtual and blended public schools that we serve. These grants are awarded to the local or state education agency or to the not-for-profit entity that holds the charter of the virtual or blended public school on a competitive basis in some instances and on an entitlement basis in other instances. Grants awarded to public schools and programs—whether by a federal or state agency or non-governmental organization—often include reporting requirements, procedures and obligations.
Federal Laws Applicable to Virtual Public Schools and Blended Schools
Five primary federal laws are directly applicable to the day-to-day provision of educational services we provide to virtual and blended public schools:
Every Student Succeeds Act (“ESSA”). Under the ESSA, the states have the discretion to develop and design their own accountability systems within a broad federal framework. In addition, states have been given the authority to adopt different types of annual accountability plans for school performance, including proficiency and growth standards for all students and subgroups. The ESSA makes clear that the U.S. Department of Education has a limited role to impose federal mandates, direction or control over the authority given to the states. Notwithstanding these federal limitations, states are
13
Table of Contents
still required under ESSA to test students in reading or language arts and math annually in grades 3-8 and once in grades 10-12, and in science once in each of the following grade spans: 3-5, 6-9 and 10-12. All states have plans approved by the U.S. Department of Education to demonstrate compliance with ESSA.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). The IDEA is implemented through regulations governing every aspect of the special education of a child with one or more specific disabilities that fit within any of the disability categories listed in the Act. The IDEA created a responsibility on the part of a school to identify students who may qualify under the IDEA and to perform periodic assessments to determine the students’ needs for services. A student who qualifies for services under the IDEA must have in place an individual education plan, which must be updated at least annually, created by a team consisting of school personnel, the student, and the parent. This plan must be implemented in a setting where the child with a disability is educated with non-disabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate. IDEA provides the student and parents with numerous due process rights relating to the student’s program and education, including the right to seek mediation of disputes and make complaints to the state education agency. The schools we manage are responsible for helping ensure the requirements of IDEA are met. The virtual public schools and blended schools are required to comply with certain requirements in IDEA concerning teacher certification and training. We, the virtual public school or the blended school could be required to provide additional staff, related services, supplemental aids and services or a private school option at our own cost to comply with the requirement to provide a free appropriate public education to each child covered under the IDEA. If we fail to meet this requirement, we, the virtual public school or blended school could lose federal funding and could be liable for compensatory educational services, reimbursement to the parent for educational services the parent provided and payment of the parent’s attorney’s fees.
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. A virtual public school or blended school receiving federal funds is subject to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (“Section 504”) insofar as the regulations implementing the Act govern the education of students with disabilities as well as personnel and parents. Section 504 prohibits discrimination against a person on the basis of disability in any program receiving federal financial assistance if the person is otherwise qualified to participate in or receive benefit from the program. Students with disabilities not specifically listed in the IDEA may be entitled to specialized instruction or related services pursuant to Section 504 if their disability substantially limits a major life activity. Beginning in 2011, the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education interpreted both Section 504 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act to apply to elementary and secondary schools and to require that students with disabilities be afforded substantially equivalent ease of use as students without disabilities. As applied to online public schools, such “web accessibility” requires technical capabilities similar to those applied to procurements of information technology by the federal government under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (“Section 508”) or standards adopted by the World Wide Web Consortium, such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (“WCAG”) Level A and Level AA. If a school fails to comply with the requirements and the procedural safeguards of Section 504, it may lose federal funds even though these funds flow indirectly to the school through a local board. In the case of bad faith or intentional wrongdoing, some courts have awarded monetary damages to prevailing parties in Section 504 lawsuits. Because there is no federal rule setting a uniform technical standard for determining web accessibility under Section 508 and Title II of the ADA, online service providers have no uniform standard of compliance. Some states have adopted the standards promulgated under Section 508, while others require WCAG Level A and/or Level AA or their own unique standards.
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”). Virtual public schools and blended schools are also subject to the FERPA, which protects the privacy of a student’s educational records and generally prohibits a school from disclosing a student’s records to a third party without the parent’s prior consent. The law also gives parents certain procedural rights with respect to their minor children’s education records. A school’s failure to comply with this law may result in termination of its eligibility to receive federal education funds. Schools that contract with vendors that violate FERPA may be prohibited from contracting with the vendor for five years.
Communications Decency Act. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 (“CDA”) provides protection for online service providers against legal action being taken against them because of certain actions of others. For example, the CDA states that no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any data given by another provider of information content. Further, Section 230 of the CDA grants interactive online services of all types, broad immunity from tort liability so long as the information at issue is provided or posted by a third party. As part of our technology services offering, we provide an online school platform on which teachers and students may communicate. We also conduct live classroom sessions using Internet-based collaboration software and we may offer certain online community platforms for students and parents. While the CDA affords us some protection from liability
14
Table of Contents
associated with the interactive online services we offer, there are exceptions to the CDA that could result in successful actions against us that give rise to financial liability.
Other Federal Laws. Other federal laws also apply to virtual managed schools, in some cases depending on the demographics associated with a school. For example, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been deemed to apply to English language learners (“ELL”) students, as further defined in the joint guidance issued by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education in January 2015. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in education programs, activities and employment, applies to all schools that receive federal funds. There are also other federal laws and regulations that affect other aspects of our business such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”), which imposes certain parental notice and other requirements for children under 13 years of age who access the web-based schools we manage. 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. We have developed procedures by which computers that we ship to students meet this requirement. Many other federal and state laws, such as deceptive trade practices laws, the Lanham Act and others apply to us, just as they do to other businesses. If we fail to comply with these and other federal laws, we could be determined ineligible to receive funds from federal programs or face penalties.
Laws and Regulations Applicable to Consumer Education Products offered by Galvanize, Tech Elevator and MedCerts
State Laws Authorizing or Restricting Private Post-Secondary Schools. The authority to operate a private post-secondary school is dependent on the laws and regulations of each state. Laws and regulations vary significantly from one state to the next and are constantly evolving, with regulatory authority vesting under various state agencies. Galvanize, Tech Elevator and MedCerts each currently operate in a multi-jurisdictional regulatory environment, maintaining licenses in several states. In states that have implemented specific legislation to license and oversee private post-secondary schools, Galvanize, Tech Elevator and MedCerts are able to operate under these statutes. State laws and regulations affect many aspects of operating a private post-secondary school, including, but not limited to, requiring the content and sequence of the curriculum, the methodology for counting student enrollments and reporting outcomes, graduation requirements, the duration of the approved program, the accessibility of curriculum and technology to students with disabilities, specific credentialing of teachers and administrators, the assessment of student performance, accountability requirements, and compliance with student record collection and retention requirements.
Other types of state regulations applicable to private post-secondary schools include, but are not limited to, restrictions on the use of scholarships and tuition discounts, student payment policies and the collection of and use of student fees, accounting and financial management, and limitations on marketing and advertising practices. States also have laws and regulations concerning the certification, training, experience and continued professional development of teachers and staff with which private post-secondary schools may be required to comply. Additionally, state unfair competition and consumer protection laws and regulations apply to Galvanize, Tech Elevator and MedCerts in their dealings with the public, which include limitations on advertising, disclosures, and the structure of financing methods for consumer customers as well as registration requirements under state consumer finance laws. Lastly, additional regulations and student outcome reporting requirements may affect Galvanize, Tech Elevator and MedCerts should they seek funding related to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act in any given state.
Federal Laws Applicable
None of Galvanize, Tech Elevator and MedCerts qualifies or receives Title IV funding under the Higher Education Act, but each of them is eligible for federal funding through its respective veterans education and workforce programs. As such, each is required to comply with the anti-discrimination provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, as amended, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, and all Federal regulations adopted to carry out such laws. If we fail to comply with these federal laws, we could be determined ineligible to receive funds from federal programs or face penalties. Galvanize also provides training services to active duty service members subject to the Federal Acquisition Regulations and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement.
15
Table of Contents
Laws and Regulations Applicable to Our Products offered Directly to Consumers
Our business also encompasses individual products packaged and sold directly to consumers, including elements of Galvanize, Tech Elevator and MedCerts, along with products for child education, including individual online courses and supplemental educational products. A variety of federal, state and non-U.S. laws and regulations apply to this aspect of our business, including laws and regulations related to consumer protection, payments, marketing and advertising, taxation, privacy, data security, and artificial intelligence.
See risk factors under Item 1A, "Risk Factors – Risks Related to Government Funding and Regulation of Public Education” for additional information about the risks that may impact our business.
16
Table of Contents