TEXAS, USA — School is out but the books and laptops are opening as many students are continuing their learning this Summer. At Stride K12 Learning, an online education learning system for kids kindergarten through 12th grade, they have seen enrollment go up.
"Last year during COVID, our student enrollment went up dramatically we were around somewhere 130,000 students to about 190,000 students and a lot of that was driven by COVID," says Dr. Shaun McAlmont, President of Career Learning at Stride Inc.
During the pandemic, surveys conducted at Stride showed two out of three parents think their child needs to be taught a little more material to make up for anything they could have missed out on.
"There were millions of students around the country that suffered learning loss because their districts or their schools weren't able to get up to speed quickly and so student learning took a hit. Whether students were attending school or not attending, whether they have the equipment or not. Those are all factors that played a role in delaying the learning process," says Dr. McAlmont.
An even bigger loss has been seen in students math performance.
"Math just happens to be the course or the subject matter that we felt most important to offer during the summer because that's where most students will struggle," says Dr. McAlmont.
Now that we've been introduced to virtual learning. Could it possibly be the new norm?
"Post-COVID we expect a virtual education to stay popular and we expect student enrollment to take on new trends because of the experience that people had during the COVID shutdown, whether it was positive or negative, a virtual education is all we had," says Dr. McAlmont.