Where are all the DL learners? Part II

After going back through all 69 DL School Reports (yes, we have 69 DL schools in this province), I realized that I could get some of the data I needed all by myself. It was a bit tricky in places, as many schools make errors when they enter their data for the reports. Once or twice, I had to make an informed guess about what the enrollment might be (for example, I had a hunch that the Vancouver Learning Network, through SD 39, might have around 80 kids enrolled from K to 7 based on the other data provided). Most of the hard cold facts, thankfully, were right in front of my nose.

How Many K to 9 DL Learners Are There?

As I mused in Part I, the Grades K to 9 age group is the most likely place where registration is bleeding numbers to DL. Parents who may have chosen registration in the past may now be choosing DL as it becomes the "default" choice in BC home learning culture.

All the numbers below are for K through 9 only because these are the compulsory grades for registration or enrollment. Also, kids in these grades must attend full-time in only one school, unlike grade 10. School leaving age in BC is 16, meaning that the child does not have to register or enroll the fall of the year he or she has her 16th birthday.

NOTE: The data used for the school reports, my source, is compiled from the September 30 submission of the 1701 forms (Student Data Collection). As enrollment is fluid and not fixed, these figures are projections and not final or absolute numbers.

That being said...

The total DL enrollment for 2010/2011, as of September 30, for grades K through 9 was (approximately) 7943.

Yes. 7943. Not close to 30,000 or 50,000 as the reports suggest (or even half of those numbers for this particular demographic). Instead, close to 8000.

By the way, that leaves 7,941 school-aged students who are enrolled in DL for grades 10 to 12, a population I'm not all that concerned about when comparing DL and registration (at this point).

And, here's the really interesting part, more of those kids in that K-to-9 grade range are enrolled in independent DL schools than in public DL schools. There are 3472 K-to-9 kids (approximately) enrolled in public DL programs. There are 4471 K-to-9 kids enrolled in independent DL programs.

That's a difference of 1000 home learners. 56% independent DLs, 44% public DLs. And remember, there are only 14 independent DL schools compared to 55 public DL schools. And only 12 of those independent schools cater to K to 9 compared to 44 public DLs.

The Details

It's even more interesting to look at the different schools (the main "players") and see their numbers.

Heritage Christian Online School has 1322 learners enrolled K to 9. That's almost 17% of the total DL population for this age group in the province.

SelfDesign has 1118 learners enrolled K to 9. That's over 14% of all learners in this category.

Together, these two big DLs have almost a third of the K to 9 DL enrollments for the province: 31%.

So, what about EBUS? Well, EBUS is the actually the 5th largest DL for this age category in the province at 435 enrollments or 5.5%. The two DL programs that beat EBUS out are independent: Traditional Learning Academy (Surrey) with 495 enrollments (6%) and Regent Christian Online Academy (Saanich) with 491 enrollments (6%).

The next biggest public school DL for this age group is New West's Homelearners' Program with 258 enrollments K to 9. That takes in 3% of the population.

It dwindles rapidly from there. As there are 44 public DLs in the province who cater to K to 9, sharing 3472 students, the average student enrollment in a public DL is 79.

I think it's worth noting that out of the 56 DL programs who enroll K to 9, six enroll over 52% of DL learners and four of those six are independent DL schools.

What About the Money?

Together, independent schools take in $17,537,789.

Public schools take in $27,428,722.

And the total funding is $44,966,511 for K to 9 DL in the province or 56% of all DL funding (despite representing only 28% of the DL headcount for all ages).

As you would guess, the big enrollment schools have the big money. Of course, because independent DLs only get 50% of the grant provided to their local school district, a school like EBUS doesn't come out too badly on paper. See the chart to compare total funding amounts based on the K to 9 FTE (full-time equivalent) figure, 7698, which is lower than enrollment for some reason (likely Kindergarten and this year will be the last year for that as all DLs will be required to go full-time for K).

Indep. School	Total DL Head Count	K to 9 Head Count	K to 9 FTE	2010/11 Per FTE Funding	Approx. K to 9 Funding (FTE)
Anchor Academy	470	369	354	$4,119	$1,458,126
Heritage Christian	1698	1322	1311.5	$3,655	$4,793,533
Regent Christian Online	524	491	464.5	$3,796	$1,763,242
Self Design	1342	1118	1106	$4,627	$5,117,462
Traditional Learning Academy	645	495	475	$3,657	$1,737,075
Total Indep (12 schools)	5501	4471	4363.3		$17,537,789
Public School	Total DL Head Count	K to 9 Head Count	K to 9 FTE	2010/11 Per FTE Funding	Approx. K to 9 Funding (FTE)
FVDES	1672	183	181	$7,357	$1,331,617
Surrey Connect	3878	156	155	$7,314	$1,133,670
New West Homelearners' Program	258	258	245.5	$7,307	$1,793,869
SIDES	2554	192	181.6	$7,592	$1,378,707
NIDES	2025	202	194.5	$7,681	$1,493,955
@kool	877	74	73.5	$7,918	$581,973
EBUS	843	435	426.6	$9,931	$4,236,565
Total Public (44 schools)	22061	3472	3335		$27,428,722
	TOTAL DL Head Count	K to 9 Head Count	K to 9 FTE		Approx. K to 9 Funding (FTE)
TOTAL DL (K-9)	27592	7943	7698		$44,966,511

Are You Surprised? 

I was, a little.

But it doesn't make me less concerned about registration numbers. Here's why.

In 1996/97, before the MinEd put a cap on and formalized public DL programs, there were 4925 registered home learners in our province. There were no numbers for DL that year as school districts weren't yet required to separate them out from their regular enrollments. But, in 1997/98, they were and the enrollment that year, for all grades and ages, was 8362. So, let's generously say it was about that number the year before (although that may be far too generous). That gives us a split of about 37:63 for registered/DL in terms of the overall home learning population (including distance education schools).

In 2010/11, there are 2218 registered home learners and 27,597 enrolled DL students. We know that number is inflated by many young adults and adults doing high school or upgrading via DL, so even when we control for that and compare the registered number (for up to age 19) to grade K through 9 for  enrolled, we get a split of 22:78 registered/DL for home learners across BC.

In 1996, at least 1 out of every 3 home learners was registered (likely closer to 1 out of 2 if we were able to correct for grades 10 to 12). In 2011, only 1 out of every 5 home learners (grades K-to-9) is registered. 

If my mathematical reasoning on this is wrong, please let me know. I'm open to correction. Or if you have a better way to present the relationship, I'd like to hear about that, too.

But, for now, this shows the trend in a different sort of way.

Nope, it's not as bad as I originally thought (7:93). But it's still moving in a certain direction and will likely continue along that trajectory unless more people consider registration for their families.

And why would they want to do that? Well, perhaps that will be a little something for another post.

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Go to these links for my sources:

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/reporting/

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/independentschools/is_resources/10-11_recalc_grants.pdf

Where are all the DL learners? Part I

As I've been looking over the numbers in the various Ministry of Education reports, one thought keeps popping up over and over again. It's this:

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

 * Missing some of the school-aged enrollment data due to data entry error

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.

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Now you, too, can make your own obsessive spreadsheet

Go to these links for my sources:

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/reporting/

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/independentschools/is_resources/10-11_recalc_grants.pdf

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