If there are ~30,000 dedicated Distributed Learners in BC, where are they?
In Victoria, the local support groups have a modest membership (from 100 to 200 families, depending on the group, with a lot of crossover between groups). The big Vancouver list, which has participants from all over the lower mainland, has a membership of just under 800. Other support groups around the province have relatively smaller memberships, from 20 to 100 families on average, depending on location.
Where are all these DL kids hiding?
I decided to take a closer look at the numbers to see what was happening. I created a spreadsheet listing all the Distributed Learning (DL) schools in the province. I looked at the 2010/11 Student Statistics report for each school and determined the following: the head count as of September 30, the number of school-aged children enrolled, the number of adults enrolled, the Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) number, and the Per Pupil Funding Grant as of December, 2010.
Here's what I found...
For public DL programs, as of September 30, there are more adult DL students than there are school-aged students. Yes, that's right.
When I added up the head counts of all the public DL programs, there were 11,812 adults enrolled out of a total of 22,096 DL learners. That means that as of September 30, there were only 10,419 school-aged kids (K-12) enrolled in Public DLs.
That's not all, folks. If you squish those 22,096 public DL enrollments together so that all the students taking one or two DL courses are combined to make one full-time student (eight courses for the year), then the Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) enrollment for public schools was 7447 including the adults. And that funding amount, as of September 30, added up to $59,561,254.40.
That made me curious. What would happen to that number if we took out the adult students? What would happen that number if we took out the Grades 10 to 12 kids who only take a few courses over the year?
So, I sent an email to the Education Reporting Unit to see if they could help me understand what's going on.
And, as of the writing of this post, I haven't heard back yet (so there will be a sequel - yay!).
However, a funny thing happened when I called the Distributed Learning Unit to find out how many courses registered kids 15+ years could take and not lose their registered status (which is as many as they'd like, by the way, for grades 10 to 12). I was passed along to the branch manager, Tim Winkelmans. Tim had actually seen my email so most of our conversation was spent discussing DL numbers (and he assured me that he had someone working on a response for me and that I would be given some additional links to data that I may not have seen yet).
Here are some things that Tim cleared up for me...
On the Ministry School Statistics Report, there are two DL numbers listed. These contain data from the September 30 1701 forms (what all schools submit to the MinEd for the initial head count, which affects the first batch of funding of the year). One is Headcount of Students by Facility Type (and includes both public and independent schools). That number is 27,539 for DL (which was slightly lower than the number I got from adding up all the individual school enrollments (27,597), which I thought was odd). The second number is for Students Enrolled in Programs (public and independent DL schools) and that number was 49,601.
Tim clarified that the first number was for kids who are ONLY enrolled in a DL school. The second number includes both the first number AND kids who are cross-enrolled; that is, kids who are both attending a brick and mortar school and are also taking a DL course (would likely include registered home learners who are taking a DL course or two as well). That means, that we can just forget about those additional 22,000+ kids when we are looking at DL numbers. Those kids wouldn't be registered anyway (unless they already are!).
Tim was quite surprised by my figures involving adult learners. He assured me that might be what it *looked* like as of September 30, but the reality was that DL for Grades 10 to 12 has year-round enrollment. The September 30 number greatly under-represents the total number of DL-only students from September through August for 2010-2011.
This bit here was taking from one of the reports I used for the Trends post. Click to enlarge it, but the fine print under item 3 states:
3) As students can enrol in DL courses at any time, this will under-represent the actual number of students taking courses by distributed learning in a year. The annual total DL enrolment was 33,0222 for 2006-07 and 48,491 for 2007/08. The projected enrolment for 2008/09 is 56,000. [includes both public and independent DL numbers]I don't know what the projected enrollment is for 2010/11 unless the person compiling the report forgot to change the dates (which may be the case). However, it is important to realize that most of these additional kids are likely very part-time, just picking up a course or two. The FTE will be much lower, so the funding will be much lower. When I crunched the numbers for public DL (without cross-enrollment) using the September 30 numbers, I came up with a total public DL funding amount of $59,561,254.40. When I spoke to Tim on the phone, he suggested that number, by the end of the funding period for 2010/2011, would be closer to $75 million for public DL alone.
What about independent DL schools?
Tim doesn't have much to do with independent DLs as they are outside of the LearnNowBC mandate. The Office of the Inspector of Independent Schools (OIIS) oversees independent DLs directly.
Here's the thing that's interesting about independent DLs. Their headcount (as of September 30) closely matches their FTE. As of September 30, there were 5501 learners enrolled and the FTE was 5148.2. In addition, there were only a total of 36 adults students enrolled in independent DLs. This means that most of those 5501 enrollments are full-time K to 12 learners.
The total funding for all independent DL programs, according to the September 30 head count and the December funding amounts, is $20,567,285.40.
The Big Players
If you are insatiably curious like I am, you may be wondering which DLs have the highest enrollments (and funding). I'm happy to share that with you.
Surprisingly, although public DLs have an FTE of 7411.9 and independent DLs have an FTE of 5148.2, the *BIG* DLs are independent.
The most popular DL is Heritage Christian Online School with a headcount of 1698 and a FTE of 1656. Although their 50% funding is only $3655, they are the second highest funded DL in the province: $6,052,680.00.
The next most popular DL is SelfDesign Learning Community with a headcount of 1342 and a FTE of 1168. Their funding, with the half-district-funding landing at $4627, means that they are third highest in the province at $5,404,336.00.
So, what about EBUS Academy? The headcount as of September 30 was 843 with a FTE of 613.9. The Nechako Lakes School District was allotted funding at $9,931 per student this year, so the grand total for EBUS is $6,096,640.90. This is the highest funding amount that any DL in the province, public or independent, receives.
The Other Numbers
Students taking part-time DL courses (not cross-enrolled) over-inflate the DL numbers so that it looks like there is a lot more funding going toward DL than there actually is. Take Surrey Connect, for example. In terms of headcount alone, it's the largest DL in the province with 3878 learners. So why didn't I pick them as a big player? Because of their FTE. Their FTE is only 629.1 learners, which means that most of their enrollment is part-time and likely Grades 10 to 12. So, yes, on paper that's higher than EBUS. But... their per pupil funding grant is only $7,314, putting their total funding as $4,601,237.40.
Big, yes. But not a program that's competing with K-9 registration.
Because that was my motive for crunching these numbers.
I was trying to determine which programs were most salient to that K to 9 population who may have chosen registration over the Distance Education Schools in days of yore but who are now drawn to DL.
Looking at the trends in student enrollment since 2006 (Bill 33), here's what enrollment looks like for the DLs whose FTE closely matches the September headcount.
DL School | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 |
Anchor Academy | 329 | 375 | 360 | 478 | 470 |
Heritage Christian | 897 | 1120 | 1293 | 1577 | 1698 |
Self Design | 456 | 682 | 755 | 974 | 1342 |
Traditional Learning Academy | 313 | 499 | 547 | 576 | 645 |
For comparison (enrollment has higher proportion of adult and Grade 10-12 students) | |||||
Surrey Connect | 620 | 1434 | 1155 | 2059 | 3878 |
Vancouver Learning Network | 520 | 1008 | 1242 | 1267 | 653* |
SIDES | 615 | 1214 | 1639 | 2259 | 2554 |
NIDES | 604 | 843 | 799 | 1213 | 2025 |
@kool | 268 | 406 | 357 | 597 | 877 |
EBUS | 849 | 857 | 811 | 992 | 843 |
*missing some data for 2010/11
Here's what registration looks like in that same time period.
This year, the registration number is 2218, another -9.5 decrease.
Someone asked me if I felt any better about the DL numbers once I had taken a closer look at them and realized that most of that 30,000-ish DL enrollment number was made up of adult or Grades 10 to 12 part-time students. I had to say, no. Not really. The trend is still the trend. More home learning families in BC are choosing DL over registration and registration numbers are falling rapidly. Both Tim Winkelmans and a home learning parent pointed out that there are simply fewer kids in the province. That's true. However, when I told Tim that registration had fallen by 9.5% each of the past two years, he was quite surprised. He indicated that was a much steeper drop-off than what would be expected based on the rate of decline of the school-aged population in BC.
Even More Numbers
For those of you who are interested, here is some of the data from above in chart format. I know it's easier for some folks (like me) to see the big picture when the data is presented like this.
Independent DL Schools
There are 14 independent DL schools in BC. Theses are only the ones that have fairly robust enrollment numbers. The total at the bottom includes data from all 14 schools.
School | SD | 10/11 Head Count | School-Age | Adult | 10/11 FTE | 2010/11 Per FTE Funding | Approx. Total Funding (FTE) |
Anchor Academy | 83 | 470 | 470 | 0 | 426.5 | $4,119 | $1,756,754 |
Heritage Christian | 23 | 1698 | 1689 | 9 | 1656 | $3,655 | $6,052,680 |
Regent Christian Online | 63 | 524 | 524 | 0 | 487.3 | $3,796 | $1,849,791 |
Self Design | 8 | 1342 | 1318 | 24 | 1168 | $4,627 | $5,404,336 |
Traditional Learning Academy | 36 | 645 | 644 | 1 | 609.4 | $3,657 | $2,228,576 |
Average | |||||||
Total Indep | 5501 | 5465 | 36 | 5148.2 | $3995 | $20,567,285 |
Public DL Schools
There are 55 public DL schools in BC. I've listed the ones with significant enrollment or FTE numbers.
School | SD | 10/11 Head Count | School-Age | Adult | 10/11 FTE | 2010/11 Per FTE Funding | Approx. Total Funding (FTE) |
FVDES | 33 | 1672 | 736 | 936 | 594.3 | $7,357 | $4,372,265 |
Surrey Connect | 36 | 3878 | 2138 | 1740 | 629.1 | $7,314 | $4,601,237 |
Vancouver Learning Network* | 39 | 653 | 440 | 213 | 714.1 | $7,513 | $5,365,033 |
New West Homelearners' Program | 40 | 258 | 258 | 0 | 245.5 | $7,307 | $1,793,869 |
SIDES | 63 | 2554 | 833 | 1721 | 510.9 | $7,592 | $3,878,753 |
NIDES | 71 | 2025 | 612 | 1413 | 487.7 | $7,681 | $3,746,024 |
@kool | 73 | 877 | 348 | 529 | 226.1 | $7,918 | $1,790,260 |
EBUS | 91 | 843 | 704 | 139 | 613.9 | $9,931 | $6,096,641 |
Average | |||||||
Total Public | 22096 | 10419 | 11812 | 7447 | $8001 | $59,561,254 |
All Together Now
10/11 Head Count | School-Age | Adult | 10/11 FTE | 2010/11 Per FTE Funding | Approx. Total Funding (FTE) | |
Total Indep | 5501 | 5465 | 36 | 5148.2 | $3995 | $20,567,285 |
Total Public | 22061 | 10384 | 11812 | 7411.9 | $8001 | $59,305,235 |
Average | ||||||
Combined Total | 27597 | 15884 | 11848 | 12595.2 | $6362 | $80,128,539 |
Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. I may not have the data at my fingertips, but now I know who to ask. Also, I'm happy to forward my complete excel spreadsheet along to anyone who asks.
Also, in advance, mea culpa. I'm sure there is likely a glitch with the numbers here and there. Although I tried to make sure the information is accurate, my fingers sometimes have a mind of their own. Please feel free to check the figures, data, and calculations yourself if something seems off -- and please let me know if I've made a mistake!
Also, it's important to know that these numbers only indicate what enrollment may have looked like this year based on September 30 projections... but they are not accurate. That data is only available at the end of the school year and is not collated nicely into the student statistics reports.
My next post will hopefully have some information about the proportion of adult students in the FTE amounts. Also, I will take the time to tabulate the numbers for grades K to 9 for each DL listed on my spread sheet, which will likely give us a more accurate number of full-time DL students in BC. This number is important because this age-group is required to be enrolled full-time in a school and cannot cross enroll. The calendar year a student turns 16, he or she is no longer required to either register or enroll in September.
Also, it's important to know that these numbers only indicate what enrollment may have looked like this year based on September 30 projections... but they are not accurate. That data is only available at the end of the school year and is not collated nicely into the student statistics reports.
My next post will hopefully have some information about the proportion of adult students in the FTE amounts. Also, I will take the time to tabulate the numbers for grades K to 9 for each DL listed on my spread sheet, which will likely give us a more accurate number of full-time DL students in BC. This number is important because this age-group is required to be enrolled full-time in a school and cannot cross enroll. The calendar year a student turns 16, he or she is no longer required to either register or enroll in September.
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Now you, too, can make your own obsessive spreadsheet
Go to these links for my sources:
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