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Stride runs online schools for kids from kindergarten through high school.
Stride, Inc. is a company that runs online schools. Its main customers are families with kids in kindergarten through 12th grade, plus some adults looking for career training. Here's how it makes money: public schools pay Stride to provide the actual teaching, curriculum, and technology for virtual classrooms. Think of it as a company that doesn't own the school building but supplies everything inside it — the teachers, the lessons, and the software — and gets paid per student enrolled. Most of its revenue comes from these managed public school programs, where Stride partners with local districts or charters. A smaller slice, maybe 15% to 20%, comes from career learning: programs that train people for jobs like medical billing, IT support, or skilled trades, often through employer partnerships.
The business is simple at its core. Stride enrolls students, gets funded by state or district money per pupil, and keeps a cut after paying for teachers and tech. Because it's mostly online, adding more students costs less than opening a new brick-and-mortar school, so profits can scale. The company is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, but its classrooms are everywhere — students log in from home. Recently, Stride has leaned into career-focused programs and bought companies that train workers for specific jobs, betting that both families and employers will pay for skills that lead directly to a paycheck. It also buys back its own stock, which shrinks the number of shares and can lift the value of the ones that remain.
The big turning point came when the pandemic pushed millions of families to try online school. Many stayed. Stride went from a niche player to a household name in virtual education, and revenue has grown steadily since. It faces real risks, though: state funding for online schools can change with politics, and some regulators worry about whether kids learn as well online as in person. But for now, the company sits in a sweet spot — it sells a service that districts need and families choose, and it gets paid whether the school building is open or not.
Saved answer · last researched 11 Oct 2026