K12 Inc., a Herndon education technology player, is now officially Stride Inc., according to federal filings.
The name change, long planned and announced in November, was made official Wednesday in this, the company's 20th year of operation, following a legal change in its certificate of incorporation. The company took this step after a series of acquisitions that have taken its work far beyond its original scope of kindergarten through 12th-grade learning, hence the former moniker. Its terrain now includes higher education, professional training and coding boot camps, among others.
“A great education doesn’t stop at high school graduation,” said Nate Davis, Stride’s CEO and chairman, in a statement regarding the change. “The Stride brand recognizes that, as a company, we are no longer limited by the boundaries of the K-12 market, and that we are dedicated to supporting lifelong learning and providing personalized, high-quality education in important career pathways that launch good-paying careers.”
Its acquisitions have included both coding skills company Tech Elevator for $23.5 million and online career certification company MedCerts for an undisclosed price, both in November. In a major move, K12 had acquired coding school Galvanize for $165 million in January, bringing more data science and software engineering education for adult learners into its fold.
The company has also seen a boost in 2020 as online learning has taken hold during the pandemic. It brought in nearly $371 million in revenue in the third quarter of 2020, up from $257 million during the same period of 2019, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. K12 also posted a profit of $12.6 million in the third quarter, swinging from a $9.7 million loss during the same time last year.
But while the company's stock saw a surge over the summer, rising from the low $20s per share to more than $50 per share in August, it has since fallen back down, spending most of November and December between $20 and $25 per share.
The company has also seen some setbacks, including a high-profile ransomware attack that it revealed in a Dec. 1 federal filing. Stride said it believes the attackers accessed parts of its back-office systems, including student and employee information — and it ultimately paid the ransomware attackers to not disclose that information publicly. You can read more about that attack and the company’s response here.
Stride also saw the Miami-Dade County School Board terminate its use of its platform in September. United Teachers of Dade President Karla Hernandez-Mats said at the time that the K12 program "was not up to par with the curriculum, content or quality of instruction that our educators are accustomed to providing."
