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:
