Stride, Inc.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Stride fourth quarter fiscal year 2026 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Eliza Henson, Manager of Investor Relations. Eliza, please go ahead.

Thank you and good afternoon. Welcome to Shride's fourth quarter and year-end earnings call for fiscal year 2026. With me on today's call are Bob Noling, 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 Shride 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 will 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 earnings release and latest SEC filings, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings. These statements are made on the basis of our views and assumptions regarding future events and business performance at the time we make them, and the company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Following our prepared remarks, we will answer questions you may have. Now, we'll turn the call over to Bob.

Thanks, Eliza, and good afternoon, everyone. Before we discuss our results, I would like to address the leadership transition that we announced last Thursday. The board executed this leadership change after careful evaluation and deliberation. And ultimately, the board determined that for Stride to reach its full potential, a new leader was needed to take the reins. Having made that decision, the board enacted our succession plan to appoint me as the new CEO. We collectively believed that it was best to do this immediately so that I could hit the ground running. I appreciate the board's confidence in making me Stride's CEO. A strong consideration was putting in place a leader with strong tech and education experience and a track record of building strong teams. Those qualities align with my background. I've been an independent member of the Stride board since 2018. On the education front, I served as the inaugural CEO of the New York City Leadership Academy, which was a nationally recognized nonprofit organization committed to improving outcome for students, particularly the most vulnerable students, through high-quality educational leadership. I was a founding member of the organization, which was crafted under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein. It was during my tenure there that I grew to truly understand the importance of driving student outcomes. I believe this is the ultimate measure of educational success. Investments in curriculum, technology, and support services must translate to meaningful academic achievement. Educators, institutions, and policymakers expect this from Stride, and this will be one of my top priorities. On the tech side, I spent the early part of my career in the Bell system at Ameritech in U.S. West. As Executive Vice President of Operations and Technology at U.S. West, I oversaw every technical function in the company. Subsequently, I became CEO at Kovac Communications, which I took public, and have served as CEO of Semdes Technologies and Telwares as well. I have also served on the board at a variety of Fortune 500 companies, bringing a lens of delivering long-term shareholder value through board oversight. I've been a leader on every board on which I have served, whether as chairman of the board or committee chair. Given my experience on Stride's board, I have a strong understanding of our business. I've gotten an appreciation for our mission. and our people who deliver on that mission every day. So, if you were to summarize my experience in a few words, I have a proven track record as an operator. I'm known for building strong teams and I get quite deep in the details as that is my comfort zone. Second, I have a strong blend of tech and education experience. And then third, I bring a shareholder-driven mindset from my board experiences. There is a lot to continue to build on here at Stride, and I'm incredibly excited by the opportunity ahead of us. Stride is a market leader with several competitive advantages. We have a significant and scaled base of students across more than 30 geographies, and the management team is committed to growing the business deeper, where we already have students, as well as planting flags in new geography. The management team has exhibited disciplined fiscal management, and as a result, we have a balance sheet that enables us to make prudent investments in the growth of our company. An example of this is the extension of our share repurchase authorization until October 31, 2027. Once our trading window opens at the end of October, I intend to actively consider opportunistic stock repurchases as part of our capital allocation strategy. Stride has a tremendous amount of talent throughout the organization, from the management team all the way to our front line. That's why I'm eager to roll up my sleeves alongside this group. And I do recognize there is room for improvement. While we have strong foundational elements, we also have many students that we could still be serving. To grow our market share, in large part, we must improve student outcomes. This includes better leveraging our suite of products and services, such as our live and AI tutoring platforms and our Tallow career and digital curriculum platforms. We've done a nice job over the years of adding capabilities, but I believe that there's even more we can do to extend our suite of products and help students to reach their goals. Improving our go-to-market has huge potential. As we execute our strategy, I am confident that we will better meet the needs of our students which will in turn create more value for our shareholders. Let me now pivot to talk about our performance. As you heard the team talk about in the past, Stride has made significant investments in our technology platforms to improve the long-term scalability of the business. We have improved the customer experience, we've strengthened our operational foundation, and we've positioned the business for future growth. As a result of the steps we have taken today, we have delivered 4.2% enrollment growth and 4.7% revenue growth. Turning briefly to the previously announced decision by Roscoe Independent School District to not renew their contract for our Lone Star Online Academy, while we're disappointed by the district's decision, Texas remains an important state for us. and our commitment to serving families across the state remains unchanged. We continue to operate multiple schools in Texas and we're actively placing Roscoe Independent School District impacted families in our other programs. As we look towards the upcoming school year, it is still early in the enrollment season. Families will continue to make enrollment decisions throughout the fall and increasingly throughout school year. And with that caveat, We are encouraged by the indications we are seeing so far. Applications are tracking slightly behind this time last year, but we're seeing improved conversion metrics and re-registration activity continues to track slightly ahead of last year. While I'm just getting started in the CEO role, it's clear to me that there is much to be excited about. I have relocated to Virginia, and I'm full steam ahead. I believe we can build upon what this leadership team has accomplished and reach even greater heights. Thank you for your attention, and I'll now turn the call over to Donna.