Stride, Inc.

the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press the star one. Thank you. Tim Casey, Vice President, Investor Relations. You may begin your conference.

Thank you, and good afternoon. Welcome to Stride's first quarter earnings call for fiscal year 2024. With me on today's call are James Rue, Chief Executive Officer, and Donna Blackman, Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, today's conference call and webcast are accompanied by a presentation that can be found on the Stride Investor Relations website. Please be advised that today's discussion of our financial results may include certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these measures is provided in the earnings release issued this afternoon and can also be found on our investor relations website. In addition to historical information, this call may also involve forward-looking statements. The company's actual results could differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to several important factors as described in the company's latest SEC filing. These statements are made on the basis of our during this call. Following our prepared remarks, we'll answer any questions you may have. I'll now turn the call over to James. James?

Thanks, Tim, and good afternoon, everyone. At Stride, I believe we can change the future of education. We can provide opportunities for our customers that are desperately needed in today's evolving landscape. The macro outlook today portrays an increasingly cloudy picture. economic volatility and uncertainty, chaos and divisiveness in our political system that is often extremist, unsustainable debt levels, geopolitical threats, just to name a few. These are some of the macro themes our country is going through right now, and it doesn't appear they will abate anytime soon. Many of these same themes also impact our education systems and institutions. Most Americans agree and understand that our education system is in need of repair. and that our students are falling behind. I don't think there's any question that we need to rethink how we approach education and ensure we are setting up the next generation for a future we are proud to hand down to them. But I do think that will require fundamental change. And I believe Stride is positioned to change the future for our kids, for our teachers and schools, our communities, and our country. I believe this change includes offering families choice in education, And in our case, that choice is a virtual education. That choice has saved countless thousands of families from the outcome they did not want. And demand for our programs is growing. Enrollments for this fall increased 8% to almost 188,000 enrollments. Both our general education and our career learning business group. I think our numbers for this quarter speak for themselves. Record revenue, record career enrollments, record career revenue, and except for the pandemic year, our highest profitability. Also, except for the pandemic year, our highest growth rate in the past decade. Total revenue growth for the past few years, including at the midpoint of our range for this year, has been right around 9% a year. adjusted operating income at the midpoint of our range is up over 400% from fiscal year 20 and up well over 50% from fiscal year 21 when we had the pandemic benefit. Our net income will be up something like 600% from fiscal year 20. Our EPS will be over $3.60 a share, which is six times higher than fiscal year 20. Now, as we return to a sense of normalcy following the worst of the pandemic, while our programs have continued to flourish, unfortunately, many public school systems have largely reverted back to doing exactly what they were doing pre-pandemic. I had hoped the significant learning loss and access to new educational tools would challenge schools to embrace change. And some have, but far too many have not. Parents of school-aged children share these same concerns about our public education system, and they are becoming more vocal about their dissatisfaction. As a result, we're beginning to see more bipartisan efforts to expand school choice. A recent survey showed that both Democratic and Republican voters support school choice by a margin of more than two to one. A poll conducted in August by Gallup demonstrates just how frustrated Americans are Over 60% of Americans said they are dissatisfied with the quality of K through 12 education in the US. Conversely, while almost three quarters of parents rated their own children's teachers positively. This tells me that the dissatisfaction lies in the educational system and not with the incredible teachers within the system. We are starting to see this widespread dissatisfaction lead to change at the legislative level. And I think we're just at the beginning stages of changing the future of education. When we ask parents why they've selected a K-12 school, we're hearing they are coming to us to solve those same issues that are leading to dissatisfaction with our public school system. Stride has always been a leading advocate for parent choice. And I think we're starting to see more and more parents opting for a school that fits the specific needs of their child. And that's a powerful position for parents to be in. We also see continued strength in our career programs, crossing 70,000 enrollments this year. While we continue to see most of these enrollments coming from our general full-time virtual program funnel, we still believe there's a compelling case for parents and students to choose a career program. And more and more Americans agree with us. Parents and students want skills that will help them be successful in a career. And they want to develop those skills earlier. Our programs do exactly that. While also helping to alleviate student loan debt pressures and very importantly, fill the skills gap for us employers. We're continuing to see employers being more open to hiring based on skill rather than degree. In fact, in 2022, almost 30% of paid job postings on LinkedIn omitted any degree requirements. That's up from just over 20% four years ago. We're also seeing support for skills-based hiring from state policymakers and governors across the country. So far, the governors of 10 states have announced initiatives to remove degree requirements from state jobs. Now, there's still work to be done. We still need to drive awareness of our current programs, but the underlying drivers of demand demonstrate that we made the right decision to move into this fast-growing space. Our key objectives and strategies have momentum like never before. As I've mentioned, our guidance suggests we are primed for record revenue and profitability performance for this year. I mentioned last year that I felt genetic enrollment had bottomed out, and it looks like that turned out to be accurate. We think this demonstrates the strength of our K-12 full-time virtual school business, and all the indicators suggest we will continue to see strong demand for these offerings for the foreseeable future. This also allows us to invest in other growth areas and new products. As you know, we're still early in these efforts, and I'm excited to share more information at our upcoming investor day, which is going to be scheduled for November 14th here in our offices in Reston, Virginia. One of our core advantages is in our ability to move and change and innovate with the needs of the marketplace. If we are able to create a better educational future, I believe STRIDE can be part of the solution. And together, we can change the future. Now, I'll turn the call over to Donna to discuss our first quarter results and guidance.