Stride Inc (LRN) 2026 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by. My name is Tina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Stride second quarter fiscal year 2026 earnings call. (Operator Instructions)

感謝您的耐心等待。我叫蒂娜，今天我將擔任你們的會議接線生。在此，我謹代表 Stride 公司歡迎各位參加 2026 財年第二季財報電話會議。（操作說明）

It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Tim Casey, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

現在我很高興將電話轉交給投資人關係副總裁提姆凱西。你可以開始了。

Thank you, and good afternoon. Welcome to Stride's second quarter earnings call for fiscal year 2026. With me on today's call are James Rhyu, 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.

謝謝，下午好。歡迎參加 Stride 公司 2026 財年第二季財報電話會議。今天和我一起參加電話會議的有執行長 James Rhyu 和財務長 Donna Blackman。提醒各位，今天的電話會議和網路直播附帶一份演示文稿，可在 Stride 投資者關係網站上找到。請注意，今天我們對財務績效的討論可能包含某些非GAAP財務指標。

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.

這些措施的核對情況已在今天下午發布的盈利報告中提供，也可在我們的投資者關係網站上找到。除了歷史資訊外，本次電話會議還將涉及前瞻性陳述。由於公司獲利報告和最新提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件（包括我們最新的 10-K 表格年度報告和後續文件）中所述的幾個重要因素，公司的實際業績可能與任何前瞻性聲明存在重大差異。

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 any questions you may have.

這些聲明是基於我們當時對未來事件和業務表現的看法和假設而作出的，公司不承擔更新任何前瞻性聲明的義務。在發言結束後，我們將回答各位可能提出的任何問題。

Now I'll turn the call over to James.

現在我把電話交給詹姆斯。

Thanks, Tim, and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to begin our call today by providing an update on the platform issues we discussed last quarter. I think the bottom line is that we've executed on our plan and the core issues are behind us. Our focus now is to drive ongoing improvements that continue to enhance the customer experience. We will continue to build on the progress that we have made so far.

謝謝你，提姆，大家下午好。今天，我想先就我們上個季度討論過的平台問題提供一些最新進展。我認為最重要的是，我們已經執行了計劃，核心問題已經解決。我們現在的重點是推動持續改進，不斷提升客戶體驗。我們將繼續鞏固目前已取得的進展。

And insofar as possible, we will work to find proprietary solutions in order to maintain more control of the user experience. I'm confident we will not have a recurrence of these issues in the upcoming season. In addition to the stabilization of our platforms, we also saw continued strength in demand for our products and resiliency in our existing enrollments. The trends that have driven our strong enrollment growth over the last few years remain. Families continue to seek alternatives to the traditional model of education to address their specific needs.

我們將盡可能努力尋找專有解決方案，以便更好地控制使用者體驗。我相信下個賽季不會再出現這些問題。除了平台趨於穩定外，我們還看到市場對我們產品的需求持續強勁，現有學員人數也保持了韌性。過去幾年推動我們招生人數強勁成長的趨勢依然存在。為了滿足自身特定需求，家庭仍在不斷尋求傳統教育模式以外的替代方案。

So we were able to take advantage of the strong demand in applications to backfill much of our attrition during the quarter and end the quarter basically flat with the prior quarter. Our goal this year is stability and not growth. So that's what we prioritized. Now there were still some uncertainties as we headed into this quarter, most notably, how would withdrawal trends shape up as we started the second semester. I'm pleased to share that so far, second semester withdrawal rates are within historical norms.

因此，我們能夠利用強勁的申請需求來填補本季的大部分人員流失，並使本季與上一季基本持平。我們今年的目標是穩定而不是成長。所以，這就是我們優先考慮的事情。進入本季後，仍然存在一些不確定因素，最值得注意的是，隨著第二學期的開始，退學趨勢將如何發展。我很高興地告訴大家，到目前為止，第二學期的退學率都在歷史正常範圍內。

Now I'd like to circle back and discuss our approach to rolling out new platforms and why it is strategically important to us to make these investments. We operated a proprietary set of legacy platforms that were over 20 years old and a lot of technical debt, and we're not going to scale with the business as we needed them to. So we went to the market to get what we believe and what the market has confirmed are market-leading platforms to replace our outdated ones. That thesis still holds true. However, we also want to ensure that we don't place too much reliance on third parties.

現在我想回到正題，討論一下我們推出新平台的方法，以及為什麼這些投資對我們來說具有重要的戰略意義。我們經營著一套專有的、已有 20 多年歷史的遺留平台，這些平台存在大量的技術債務，而且它們無法像我們所需的那樣隨著業務的增長而擴展。因此，我們去市場上採購我們認為並且市場也證實是市場領先的平台，以取代我們過時的平台。這論點仍然成立。但是，我們也希望確保不會過度依賴第三方。

So as part of our road map, we are working with our platform partners to build an architecture where we also have a degree of influence and control over our own destiny. This will be an evolving ecosystem, which prioritizes our customer needs, and we are investing now to ensure we have plans in place to be able to move forward productively either way. We are confident the primary issues from this fall are behind us. The primary evidence we can point to are the reduction in the number and types of calls to our customer support center. As an example, after we addressed a significant login issue a couple of months ago, call volumes dropped over 90% week-over-week.

因此，作為我們發展路線圖的一部分，我們正在與平台合作夥伴共同建構一個架構，在這個架構中，我們也能對自己的命運擁有一定程度的影響和控制權。這將是一個不斷發展的生態系統，我們優先考慮客戶的需求，現在我們正在進行投資，以確保我們制定了相應的計劃，以便無論未來如何都能高效地向前發展。我們相信今年秋天的主要問題已經過去。我們能夠指出的主要證據是，我們客戶支援中心接到的電話數量和類型都減少了。例如，幾個月前我們解決了一個重大的登入問題後，通話量每週下降超過 90%。

Qualitatively, we've also seen a significant decline in the commentary on social media discussing the challenges students are facing on the platform. Now thankfully, the families in our community are resilient and our teachers and school staff are superheroes. We continue to be in contact with them and solicit feedback as we roll out new improvements.

從定性角度來看，我們也看到社群媒體上關於學生在平台上面臨的挑戰的評論顯著減少。值得慶幸的是，我們社區的家庭都很有韌性，我們的老師和學校員工都是超級英雄。我們將繼續與他們保持聯繫，並在推出新的改進措施時徵求他們的回饋。

And given the trends we are seeing in demand, withdrawals and customer experience, we believe we are well positioned for a return to our expected growth patterns next year. I want to thank all of the Stride employees and school staff who spent the last quarter moving us forward and toward our end goal of delivering results and an experience we can all be proud of.

鑑於我們目前在需求、提款和客戶體驗方面看到的趨勢，我們相信我們已做好充分準備，明年將恢復到預期的成長模式。我要感謝 Stride 的所有員工和學校工作人員，感謝他們在過去一個季度帶領我們前進，朝著最終目標邁進，那就是取得成果，並為我們所有人帶來值得驕傲的體驗。

With that, I'll turn the call over to Donna, who will talk more about our financial results. Donna?

接下來，我將把電話交給唐娜，她將詳細介紹我們的財務表現。唐娜？

Thank you, James, and good afternoon. Our employees and school staff continue to work hard to meet the needs and improve the experience of the families we serve, and we continue to see strong demand for our core offerings as families seek us out for educational alternatives. Our results this quarter reflect that continued demand.

謝謝你，詹姆斯，下午好。我們的員工和學校工作人員繼續努力滿足我們所服務家庭的需求並改善他們的體驗，我們繼續看到對我們核心服務的需求強勁，因為許多家庭都在尋求其他教育選擇。本季業績反映了這種持續的需求。

Some highlights from our quarterly results. Revenue of $631.3 million, up nearly 8% from the second quarter of fiscal year 2025. Adjusted operating income of $159 million, up $23.4 million or 17% from last year; adjusted EPS of $2.50, up $0.13 from last year; adjusted EBITDA of $188.1 million, up 17% and capital expenditures of $16 million, up from $14.8 million last year.

以下是我們季度業績的一些亮點。營收達 6.313 億美元，比 2025 財年第二季成長近 8%。調整後的營業收入為 1.59 億美元，比去年增加 2,340 萬美元，增幅為 17%；經調整後的每股收益為 2.50 美元，比去年增加 0.13 美元；經調整後的 EBITDA 為 1.881 億美元，增幅為 17%；經調整後的 EBITDA 為 1.881 億美元，增幅為 17%；經調整後的 EBITDA 為 1.881 億美元，增幅為 17%；

As a result of the continued demand for our offerings and the stabilization of our withdrawals, our total enrollments for the second quarter were 248,500, up 7.8% from last year and up slightly from the first quarter. Revenue in our Career Learning middle and high school programs grew 29% to $275.6 million, driven by enrollment growth of 17.6% year over year.

由於市場對我們產品的需求持續成長，以及退訂人數趨於穩定，我們第二季的總註冊人數為 248,500 人，比去年同期成長 7.8%，比第一季略有成長。我們的職業學習中學和高中課程收入成長了 29%，達到 2.756 億美元，主要得益於入學人數年增 17.6%。

General Education revenue declined 3.6% to $341.4 million compared to last year. Average enrollments were up slightly from last year to $137,000, but revenue per enrollment was down 3.6%, largely due to mix. Total revenue per enrollment across both lines of revenue were $2,437, up 1.8% from last year. As we mentioned last quarter, we are generally seeing a positive state funding environment. However, we still anticipate some impacts from state and program mix and timing, so we expect to finish the year flattish to last year.

與去年相比，普通教育收入下降了3.6%，至3.414億美元。平均入學人數比去年略有上升，達到 137,000 美元，但每入學人數的收入下降了 3.6%，這主要是由於課程組合的變化。兩個收入來源的總收入為每名學生 2,437 美元，比去年增長 1.8%。正如我們上個季度提到的，我們總體上看到政府撥款環境良好。不過，我們仍然預期各州和項目組合及時間安排會有一些影響，因此我們預計今年的最終結果將與去年持平。

Gross margins for the quarter were 41.1%, up 30 basis points from last year. During the quarter, we recognized a gain related to a noncore business. We were able to reach an agreement to exit a long-term commitment in that business, which positively impacted gross margins. As I mentioned on the call in October, we will continue to see additional expenses related to the platform implementation throughout the rest of the year, and we now expect full year gross margin to be similar to FY 2024. Selling, general and administrative expenses totaled $112.8 million, down nearly 2% from last year.

本季毛利率為 41.1%，比去年同期成長 30 個基點。本季度，我們確認了一項與非核心業務相關的收益。我們達成協議，退出該業務的長期投資，這對毛利率產生了積極影響。正如我在 10 月的電話會議上提到的，在今年剩餘時間裡，我們將繼續看到與平台實施相關的額外支出，我們現在預計全年毛利率將與 2024 財年類似。銷售、一般及行政費用總計 1.128 億美元，比去年下降近 2%。

We saw some benefits from the continued rightsizing of our adult learning business, and we also pulled back our marketing spend during the quarter. Stock-based compensation for the quarter was $10.3 million, an increase of $2.4 million compared to last year. We expect to see stock-based compensation in the range of $41 million to $43 million for the full year. Now turning to our balance sheet and cash flow. Capital expenditures in the quarter were $16 million.

我們從持續調整成人教育業務規模中獲得了一些好處，同時，我們也在本季削減了行銷支出。本季股票選擇權補償金額為 1,030 萬美元，比去年同期增加了 240 萬美元。我們預計全年股票選擇權激勵金額將在 4,100 萬美元至 4,300 萬美元之間。現在來看我們的資產負債表和現金流量表。本季資本支出為1600萬美元。

Free cash flow, defined as cash from operations less CapEx, was $75.9 million compared to $208.6 million last year. Cash flow during the quarter was impacted by the timing of some payments, specifically a large receivable we typically get in Q2 was pushed to Q3. We don't think there's any risk for this payment, rather it's a timing issue between quarters. We finished the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $676 million. As in past years, we expect to see positive free cash flow for the balance of the year.

自由現金流（定義為經營活動產生的現金減去資本支出）為 7,590 萬美元，去年同期為 2.086 億美元。本季現金流受到一些付款時間的影響，特別是我們通常在第二季收到的一筆大額應收帳款被推遲到第三季。我們認為這筆款項沒有任何風險，只是季度之間的時間安排問題。本季末，我們持有現金、現金等價物和有價證券共 6.76 億美元。與往年一樣，我們預計今年剩餘時間將實現正的自由現金流。

In November, our Board authorized the repurchase of up to $500 million in shares. The authorization allows us to purchase shares through October 31, 2026. During the second quarter, we repurchased $88.6 million in shares. Even with this authorization, we will continue to consider our best use of cash and our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged. We will continue to balance investments in organic growth and potential M&A transactions with our share repurchases.

11 月，董事會批准回購最多 5 億美元的股票。該授權允許我們購買股票至 2026 年 10 月 31 日。第二季度，我們回購了價值 8,860 萬美元的股票。即使獲得這項授權，我們仍將繼續考慮如何最有效地利用現金，我們的資本配置優先事項保持不變。我們將繼續平衡對內生成長和潛在併購交易的投資與股票回購之間的關係。

As we've said in the past, our strong balance sheet enables us to maintain financial flexibility. Now turning to our guidance. As James mentioned, we are seeing positive trends in demand and overall customer experience, and we are reaffirming our full year revenue guidance of $2.480 billion to $2.555 billion. Given this year's trends, I want to provide a little more commentary on seasonality. Over the past few years, we've seen the second half revenues weighted towards the fourth quarter.

正如我們過去所說，我們強勁的資產負債表使我們能夠保持財務靈活性。現在來看我們的指導意見。正如 James 所提到的，我們看到需求和整體客戶體驗方面都呈現正面趨勢，我們重申全年收入預期為 24.8 億美元至 25.55 億美元。鑑於今年的趨勢，我想就季節性問題再做一些評論。過去幾年，我們看到下半年的收入主要集中在第四季。

This year, our quarterly enrollment trends are slightly different, and therefore, we believe that the third and fourth quarter revenues will be more evenly split. Also, it's important to remember that many schools start closing enrollment for the full year in the third quarter. So even with the demand remaining strong, we still expect our third quarter average enrollment to be similar to the first and second quarters. Historically, we have seen seasonal decline in enrollments during the fourth quarter, and we expect comparable trends this year.

今年，我們的季度招生趨勢略有不同，因此，我們認為第三季和第四季的收入將更加均衡。另外，要注意的是，許多學校會在第三季開始停止全年的招生工作。因此，即使需求依然強勁，我們仍然預計第三季的平均入學人數將與第一季和第二季相似。從歷史數據來看，第四季入學人數通常會出現季節性下降，我們預計今年也會出現類似的趨勢。

Now returning to our guidance. We expect adjusted operating income between $485 million and $505 million, up from our prior guidance of $475 million to $500 million. Capital expenditures between $70 million and $80 million, unchanged from our prior guidance and an effective tax rate between 24% and 25%, also unchanged. For the third quarter of 2026, we expect revenue in the range of $615 million to $645 million; adjusted operating income between $130 million and $140 million and capital expenditures between $16 million and $21 million. We feel confident that the biggest challenges to our tech implementation are behind us. We still have work to do, but we believe we are well positioned to see continued long-term growth based on the strong demand we see for our offerings.

現在回到我們的指導部分。我們預計調整後的營業收入將在 4.85 億美元至 5.05 億美元之間，高於我們先前預測的 4.75 億美元至 5 億美元。資本支出在 7,000 萬美元至 8,000 萬美元之間，與我們先前預期的一致；有效稅率在 24% 至 25% 之間，也保持不變。我們預計 2026 年第三季營收將在 6.15 億美元至 6.45 億美元之間；調整後營業收入將在 1.3 億美元至 1.4 億美元之間；資本支出將在 1,600 萬美元至 2,100 萬美元之間。我們有信心，技術實施最大的挑戰已經過去。我們還有很多工作要做，但我們相信，基於我們產品和服務所受到的強勁需求，我們已做好充分準備，實現持續的長期成長。

Given this, we believe we remain on track to achieve our FY 2028 financial goals. These goals allow us to continue to appropriately invest in the business to ensure that we are set up for long-term success. Thank you for your time today.

有鑑於此，我們相信我們仍將按計劃實現 2028 財年的財務目標。這些目標使我們能夠繼續對業務進行適當的投資，以確保我們為長期成功做好準備。感謝您今天抽出時間。

Now I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions. Operator?

現在我將把電話轉回給接線員，回答問題。操作員？

(Operator Instructions)

（操作說明）

Alex Paris, Barrington Research.

Alex Paris，巴林頓研究公司。

Congratulations on an outstanding quarter. What a difference three months makes. So I got a couple of questions. I'm going to start with enrollment. Enrollment was certainly in line with your guidance and a little bit better than consensus expectations as you offset elevated attrition by in-year enrollment. I just wanted to get a point of clarification. James, you said withdrawal trends in the second quarter are within historical norms. So have we returned to a more normal attrition rather than the elevated attrition we talked about last quarter?

恭喜你們取得了出色的季度成績。短短三個月，變化真大。我收到了一些問題。我先從招生開始。招生情況確實符合您的指導，並且比普遍預期略好，因為您透過年中招生抵消了較高的流失率。我只是想弄清楚一點。詹姆斯，你說過第二季的提款趨勢符合歷史正常水準。所以，我們的人員流失率是否已經恢復到較正常的水平，而不是像上個季度那樣居高不下？

Yeah. So just to be 100% clear, we are 3.5 weeks, I guess, into this month. And so there's not yet a full quarter of data. So I don't want to say the quarter. But yes, we -- in the January month to date, which is where we actually had, I think, the sort of -- that sort of second semester risk potential where a lot of withdrawals would happen for the second semester, we saw withdrawal rates return to normal levels, which was very good news for us.

是的。為了百分之百確定，我想，現在已經是這個月的3.5週了。因此，目前還沒有完整的一個季度的數據。所以我不想說季度。但是，是的，從一月到現在，我們實際上看到了那種第二學期潛在的風險，即第二學期會出現大量提款，我們看到提款率恢復到了正常水平，這對我們來說是個非常好的消息。

Yeah, absolutely. Good news. All right. And then demand, both you and Donna said demand continues to be robust as measured by applications, I'm assuming. Any degradation or any increase or just continued strong? How would you characterize that? Or just a little additional color would be helpful.

是的，絕對的。好消息。好的。然後是需求，你和唐娜都說過，從申請量來看，需求依然強勁，我猜是這樣。是否有任何惡化、惡化或持續增強？你會如何描述這種情況？或者，添加一些其他顏色也會有所幫助。

Yeah. I think you're right. And sorry if I didn't clarify, demand, we measure demand through application volumes, and demand continues to be strong. Last year was a like by far, a record-breaking year, and we're seeing volumes that are similar to last year. So -- and I would say, for a little bit of context, this is -- we're seeing very strong demand volumes at a time where we're not as aggressively in market either trying to acquire enrollments. So that really speaks to a little bit of the strength of the organic demand that we see for our programs, which is also, I think, long-term good news.

是的。我覺得你說得對。如果我之前沒有解釋清楚，我感到很抱歉。我們透過申請量來衡量需求，而需求依然強勁。去年與去年非常相似，是破紀錄的一年，而我們看到今年的銷售量與去年類似。所以——我想說，為了提供一些背景資訊——我們看到需求非常強勁，而與此同時，我們並沒有像之前那樣積極地在市場上爭取招生。所以這確實在某種程度上反映了我們節目的自然需求之強勁，我認為這也是一個長期的好消息。

Absolutely. And then the last question I'm going to ask, and then I'll get back in the queue. I just -- so really great news to see that attrition has sort of stabilized and is back to a more normalized level. I get it that we're early in the second semester here. I had a question about school or program relations since this summer.

絕對地。最後一個問題我問完，然後我就重新排隊。我真的很高興看到人員流失率已經趨於穩定，並恢復到更正常的水平。我知道現在才剛開始第二學期。從今年夏天開始，我就一直對學校或課程關係的問題感到困惑。

Obviously, this was unexpected, not only for investors, but also for those who run -- those who are in charge of the programs that you run. What are you hearing from your schools, the Boards of Trustees of the schools with regard to the issues that you faced and the remediation efforts that you have embarked on so far? And what have you done to be in front of these clients? And any additional color there would be helpful.

顯然，這齣乎所有人的意料，不僅對投資者而言如此，對那些營運專案的人——那些負責你所經營的專案的人——來說也是如此。你們從學校、學校董事會那裡聽到了哪些關於你們所面臨的問題以及你們迄今為止所採取的補救措施的回饋？為了獲得與這些客戶面對面交流的機會，你做了哪些工作？如果能添加一些其他顏色就更好了。

Yeah. It's actually a great question. I think the first thing I would say is that we have just really fantastic partners. I think most people know that we have basically two categories of partners. We have these independent charter school board partners and then we have these districts, which are brick-and-mortar school districts predominantly, and they partner with us to offer this full-time offering -- a full-time online offering.

是的。這確實是個好問題。我想說的第一點是，我們有非常優秀的合作夥伴。我認為大多數人都知道，我們的合作夥伴基本上分為兩類。我們有獨立的特許學校董事會合作夥伴，還有這些學區（主要是實體學校學區），他們與我們合作提供這種全日制課程——全日制線上課程。

And I'll say, when you have a failure in your system somewhere where your partners are relying on you, I think it's natural for your partners to be frustrated and upset. And I wouldn't expect anything different. I think the thing that I see -- and we actually had late in the fall after we announced this, we actually had a summit for our partners where -- we bring all our partners into the office here. And I think that I see is that our partners understand and recognize, by and large -- it's not that they don't have frustration. They understand that we have shared mission.

我想說，當你的系統出現故障，而你的夥伴又依賴你時，你的伴侶感到沮喪和生氣是很自然的。我並不覺得有什麼不同。我認為我看到的一件事——實際上，在秋末我們宣布此事之後，我們為合作夥伴舉辦了一次峰會，把所有合作夥伴都請到了我們辦公室。我認為我看到的是，我們的合作夥伴大多理解並認識到——這並不是說他們沒有挫折感。他們明白我們擁有共同的使命。

And I think that shared mission gives us a common sense of purpose. And that common sense of purpose allows us to work through these issues together. And I think it's really productive. Again, that doesn't say that some of our partners aren't frustrated. Of course, they're frustrated on behalf of our clients just as we are.

我認為，共同的使命感賦予了我們共同的目標感。這種共同的目標感使我們能夠共同解決這些問題。我認為這真的很有成效。當然，這並不意味著我們的一些合作夥伴沒有感到沮喪。當然，他們和我們一樣，也為我們的客戶感到沮喪。

And I think I understand and appreciate the frustration that they have. But we had a record turnout here for our summit. I was able to personally speak to a lot of our partners. A lot of our partners expressed a lot of faith in our ability to turn this around. So we're just very appreciative of the partners that we have. I think in a different situation, our partners could have reacted differently. I think they stay the course. They understand we have a common mission, and I think it's been very productive.

我想我理解並體諒他們的沮喪。但我們這次峰會的出席人數創下了紀錄。我有機會親自與許多合作夥伴進行了交談。許多合作夥伴都對我們扭轉局面的能力表示了極大的信心。所以我們非常感謝我們的合作夥伴。我認為在不同的情況下，我們的合作夥伴可能會有不同的反應。我認為他們會堅持到底。他們明白我們有著共同的使命，我認為這非常有成效。

Greg Parrish, Morgan Stanley.

格雷格·帕里什，摩根士丹利。

Congrats on the stabilization here in the quarter. I wanted to double-click on the potential for in-year enrollment growth in third quarter because -- I mean, it sounds like the core platform challenges are behind you, withdrawal rates are within historical norms and demand is still strong. So I'm not really understanding why you wouldn't grow. You grew 10,000 students sequentially last year. So maybe you're taking a cautious approach just given the last few months or maybe there's something else to call out, but I just wanted to help understand that.

恭喜本季業績趨於穩定。我想專注於第三季入學人數成長的潛力，因為——我的意思是，聽起來你們的核心平台挑戰已經過去，提款率在歷史正常範圍內，需求依然強勁。所以我不太明白你為什麼不肯長大。去年你們的學生人數連續增加了10,000人。所以，或許你只是因為過去幾個月的情況而採取了謹慎的態度，或許還有其他需要指出的地方，但我只是想幫助你理解這一點。

Yeah. I mean, I guess I would -- first of all, I would really caution investors or analysts to get maybe ahead of themselves here. And I think the answer is actually really a follow-up to the last question that Alex asked with our partners. We just think it's prudent, and I think our partners think it's prudent to give ourselves time to settle in here for this year. And could, in theory, do we see demand trends that theoretically could allow for growth?

是的。我的意思是，首先，我真的要提醒投資人或分析師不要操之過急。我認為答案實際上是對 Alex 向我們的合作夥伴提出的最後一個問題的後續。我們認為這樣做比較穩妥，而且我認為我們的合作夥伴也認為這樣做比較穩妥，我們應該給自己一些時間來安頓下來，迎接今年的工作。理論上，我們是否可以看到一些需求趨勢，這些趨勢理論上可以促進成長？

Probably, yeah. Do we think it's the right thing to do? I don't think so. And when you go through a tough few months like we have, putting your foot back on the gas, I think just it sends the wrong signal all around to our partners, internally to our employees. And so it's just not the right thing to do long term for our business. So it's not what we're going to do. It has really no correlation to the demand or the withdrawal characteristics. It has to do with setting ourselves up for long-term success. And that's sort of the decision that we've made and sort of the decision we're going to stick with.

大概是吧。我們認為這樣做是對的嗎？我不這麼認為。當我們經歷了像我們這樣艱難的幾個月後，如果再加速前進，我認為這會向我們的合作夥伴、內部員工發出錯誤的信號。因此，從長遠來看，這對我們的業務來說並不是一個好做法。所以這不是我們打算做的。它與需求或提款特徵實際上沒有任何關聯。這與我們為長遠成功做好準備有關。這就是我們已經做出的決定，也是我們將堅持的決定。

Yeah. Okay. That's fair and helpful. So I mean, is the right way to think about it that I mean, you're going to potentially turn some students away here and say, hey, we don't have capacity because we're sort of ingesting where we're at. Is that one way to think about it?

是的。好的。這很公平也很有幫助。所以我的意思是，正確的思考方式是，你可能會拒絕一些學生，然後說，嘿，我們沒有容量了，因為我們已經有點招滿了。這是其中一種思考方式嗎？

Every year, by the way, for a host of reasons, we do not have enough capacity for the demand, say every year, every year in the past few years for sure. For a whole host of reasons. Sometimes it's because we have caps, sometimes it's because we don't have just enough -- whether it's teacher capacity or whatever the reason, our partners want to cut enrollments off at a certain date. Whatever the reason, we always deal with this. We deal with it at different orders of magnitude.

順便說一句，由於種種原因，我們每年都無法滿足需求，比如說，過去幾年每年都是如此。原因有很多。有時是因為招生人數有限制，有時是因為招生名額不夠——無論是教師人數不足還是其他任何原因，我們的合作夥伴都希望在某個日期停止招生。無論出於什麼原因，我們都會處理這個問題。我們從不同數量級的角度來處理這個問題。

As I think Donna mentioned, during this semester, in a normal year, enrollment windows will be closing anyway. So anybody who's applying after the enrollment window gets turned away. So again, this is not an unusual circumstance from that perspective. It's -- we have people who essentially get put on a waitlist or get deferred. We often encourage our families to apply for the fall.

正如唐娜提到的那樣，在這個學期，正常年份的入學申請窗口無論如何都會關閉。所以，任何在報名窗口期之後申請的人都會被拒絕。所以從這個角度來看，這並不是什麼不尋常的情況。情況是－我們有些人基本上會被列入等候名單或被延期。我們通常鼓勵家長申請秋季入學。

We help them do that. So it's not an unusual situation for us. It's a situation I think we'll manage and handle very well. I think the good news is that the demand for our products and services continues to outstrip the capacity and supply that we have. And as long as that continues into the future, I think we're set up well.

我們幫助他們做到這一點。所以這對我們來說並不罕見。我認為我們能夠很好地應對和處理這種情況。我認為好消息是，市場對我們產品和服務的需求持續超過我們的產能和供應。只要這種情況持續下去，我認為我們就很有希望成功。

I think also the overall trends, forget about just the demand and applications that we're seeing. I think we continue to see the overall macro trends for our business for alternative forms of education continue to grow. And I think, again, long term, that bodes well for our business. I think we've got to be really careful not to make shortsighted short-term decisions. I think we're trying to do things that will build value for our customers over the long term. And so I just don't think it's that unusual of a situation that we're in, and I think that we know how to manage through it.

我認為還要考慮整體趨勢，不要只專注在我們目前看到的需求和應用。我認為我們可以看到，另類教育形式的整體宏觀趨勢將繼續增長。而且我認為，從長遠來看，這對我們的業務來說是個好兆頭。我認為我們必須非常謹慎，避免做出短視的短期決策。我認為我們正在努力做一些能夠為客戶創造長期價值的事情。所以我覺得我們所處的這種情況並不太不尋常，而且我認為我們知道如何應對。

Yeah. Okay. That's very helpful color. And maybe just a couple more cleanup questions for me. On the revenue per enrollment, and I'm sorry, maybe this is a little messy, but I know it can be noisy as you accrue through the year, but the Gen Ed revenue per enrollment down four. I think you called out mixed Donna and then Career Learning up 10. Maybe just help us unpack there if there's anything sort of onetime or how to think about why those moved so much.

是的。好的。那是一個非常有用的顏色。可能還有幾個收尾工作要我問。關於每位學生的收入，很抱歉，這可能有點混亂，但我知道隨著一年的累積，它可能會變得不穩定，但普通教育每位學生的收入下降了 4。我認為你提到了混合型的唐娜，然後又提到了職業學習，提高了10分。或許可以幫我們理清思路，看看有沒有什麼一次性的事情，或是想想為什麼這些東西搬了這麼多次。

Yeah, Alex, and part of the reason why I've sort of been sort of focused on the combined revenue per enrollment is because the revenue per enrollment between Gen Ed and Career as well as the enrollment between Gen Ed and Career can get a little bit wonky, right? And so as we -- when we typically talk about mix, we think about it from a state perspective. But there's also a mix between Gen Ed and Career, right? So as we think about how we do the forecasting of our enrollment, and if we forecast our enrollments with an assumption for Gen Ed and we have more Career than we have Gen Ed or vice versa, we still have to do a true-up adjustment, right? It doesn't impact the full year.

是的，Alex，我之所以一直比較關注每次招生帶來的總收入，部分原因是通識教育和職業教育之間的每次招生收入以及通識教育和職業教育之間的招生人數可能會有點不穩定，對吧？所以，當我們談論混合時，我們通常是從狀態的角度來考慮的。但通識教育和職業教育之間也存在某種融合，對吧？所以，當我們考慮如何預測入學人數時，如果我們假設通識教育的入學人數比職業教育的入學人數多，或者反之亦然，我們仍然需要進行調整，對嗎？這不會影響全年。

It doesn't impact the total number, but it could impact the variance between Gen Ed or Career. So it gets a little bit wonky. And so overall, the impact of our revenue per enrollment for the year, as I said, will be flat. The impact of the revenue per enrollment for the quarter, I would sort of focus on the total as opposed to the difference between Gen Ed and Career is really, as I pointed out in my prepared remarks, about state mix and also about program mix. When I say program mix, I mean between Gen Ed and Career and also some timing as well.

這不會影響總數，但可能會影響通識教育和職業教育之間的差異。所以就有點兒不正常了。因此，正如我所說，總體而言，我們全年的每位學生的收入影響將保持不變。對於本季每入學人數的收入影響，我更傾向於關注總收入，而不是普通教育和職業教育之間的差異。正如我在準備好的發言稿中指出的那樣，這實際上與各州的組成以及課程組成有關。我所說的課程組合，指的是通識教育、職業教育、時間安排之間的關係。

Okay. That's helpful. And maybe just a last sort of model cleanup question for me. I think you called out some long-term agreement adjustment that benefited gross margin. I'm sorry if I missed it, but can you size that at all? I don't know if either in dollars or what sort of gross margin would have been excluding that impact? Any way for us to think about it?

好的。那很有幫助。最後，我可能還有一個關於模型清理的問題。我認為你指出了一些有利於毛利率的長期協議調整。如果我錯過了，請見諒，請問可以調整尺寸嗎？我不知道如果排除這種影響，毛利率會是多少美元，或者會是多少？我們有沒有什麼思考方向？

Yeah. The total amount -- it's really -- you may recall, when we purchased our boot camp business, we purchased a community business, which is sort of a business where you can lease space. And so it was not core to our business. And so that business, we have been sort of talking about trying to get rid of that business. We've had some success over the years and getting rid of small parts of it. We were able to negotiate and get out of one of the larger leases that were set to expire in 2030. The impact on that -- on the gross margins in Q2 was roughly around 200 basis points.

是的。總金額——實際上——你可能還記得，當我們收購我們的訓練營業務時，我們收購的是一家社區企業，這是一種可以出租空間的企業。因此，它並不是我們的核心業務。所以，我們一直在討論如何擺脫那項業務。這些年來，我們取得了一些成功，並逐步清除了其中的一些小部分。我們透過談判成功解除了一份將於 2030 年到期的較大租約。這對第二季毛利率的影響約為 200 個基點。

Okay. And that doesn't sound onetime then, right? Because you got out of that lease, so that should come out of your cost base on a go-forward basis. Is that right?

好的。那聽起來不像是一次性的事件，對吧？因為你已經解除了那份租約，所以這筆費用應該會從你未來的成本中扣除。是這樣嗎？

Yeah, right. So we will no longer have that lease expense that we would have otherwise had through 2030.

是啊，沒錯。因此，我們將不再承擔原本要持續到 2030 年的租賃費用。

Jason Tilchen, Canaccord Genuity.

Jason Tilchen，Canaccord Genuity。

Just to go back a little bit to Q2, I was hoping maybe we could unpack the overall enrollment growth. You mentioned sort of increased about 800 students sequentially. Can you just talk about the level of gross adds and withdrawals relative to a typical Q2 that you saw? And maybe a little bit more color you can share on what some of the conversations were that you had with some of the families who are experiencing some of these issues, that would be very helpful.

稍微回顧一下第二季度，我希望我們能分析一下整體入學人數的成長。你提到學生人數逐年增加了約 800 人。能否談談與往年第二季相比，新增用戶和提款用戶的數量水準？如果您能更詳細地分享您與一些正在經歷這些問題的家庭的談話內容，那就太好了。

Yeah. So we don't really disclose specific withdrawal volumes and things like that. And so I think what I would just say that with demand being as strong as it is, we were able to backfill, I think, pretty effectively, and that's a good thing. I think when we talk to the families and it's really actually pretty amazing how resilient the families themselves are because -- and I've had a chance to talk to a number of families myself personally and the sentiment tends to be I need this alternative. And basically, I'm willing to grit and bear some of the pain, if you will, because of how important this alternative is to me and my family.

是的。所以我們不會透露具體的提款量之類的資訊。所以我覺得，鑑於需求如此強勁，我們能夠有效地填補空缺，這是一件好事。我認為當我們與這些家庭交談時，會發現他們自身的韌性真的非常驚人，因為——而且我自己也有機會與許多家庭交談過，他們的感受往往是「我需要這種替代方案」。基本上，我願意咬牙忍受一些痛苦，因為這個替代方案對我和我的家人來說非常重要。

And that's a pretty, I find eye-opening testament to how important, I think, structurally these types of programs are within our society. And obviously, particularly in the earlier days of the fall, the user experience was difficult for a lot of families. And for as many families as we saw really grit through it with us, it's a real testament to their resiliency and I think a real testament to the need for some of these alternative programs that we operate. And so I think the conversations are never easy. When you're disappointing a customer, the conversation is never easy.

我認為這充分證明了這類項目在我們社會結構中的重要性。顯然，尤其是在秋季初期，許多家庭的使用者體驗都很困難。我們看到許多家庭都展現了堅韌不拔的精神，這充分證明了他們的韌性，也充分證明了我們所經營的這些替代方案的必要性。所以我覺得這些對話從來都不容易。當你讓顧客失望時，談話永遠不會輕鬆。

And I can just -- I don't know that I had a statistically significant number of conversations where I can say that it was representative. But I think the numbers sort of bear it out that you don't have this many families persist in a program that had some technical glitches for this long if they're not really resilient and if the alternative program isn't that important to them. So I think that's sort of the message.

而且我只能說——我不知道我是否進行了足夠多的、具有統計意義的對話，以至於我可以說這些對話具有代表性。但我認為，從數據上看，如果一個家庭沒有真正的韌性，或者替代項目對他們來說並不那麼重要，那麼就不會有這麼多家庭在一個存在一些技術故障的項目中堅持這麼長時間。所以我覺得這就是我想表達的意思。

Okay. Really, really helpful. And then just in terms of the sort of the operational performance of the platform today sort of relative to historical normal operations. Can you just give us a little bit of context about how things are performing, if there are still any issues that are in the process of being resolved? And then just sort of the follow-up to that is maybe a little more color on the road map to continuing to work on sort of in-housing some of that tech over time.

好的。真的很有幫助。然後，就目前平台的運作性能而言，與歷史上的正常運作相比如何。能否簡單介紹一下目前的進展情況，以及是否還有正在解決的問題？然後，接下來我們可能會更詳細地介紹一下，隨著時間的推移，我們將繼續推進部分技術的內部化進程。

Yeah. I think the context in the answer to this question is that prior to this year, we were dealing with an increasing number of issues on the platform. That's sort of what I was referring to in our comments to the technical debt that we were incurring that was growing year over year. And so it's not like the previous platforms were not experiencing issues. And I think that sort of when you get back to a place where most platforms like this are going to -- they're not perfect.

是的。我認為這個問題的答案的背景是，在今年之前，我們一直在處理平台上越來越多的問題。我之前在評論中提到的就是我們不斷累積的技術債務，而且這種債務還在逐年增加。所以，並不是說之前的平台沒有出現問題。我認為，當你回到大多數類似平台最終都會達到的情況時——它們並不完美。

And so yeah, are there still issues that pop up from time to time? Of course. No different than prior platforms. So -- and there are edge cases often, whether that's whatever the device somebody is trying to use as an edge case or the software somebody is trying to use as an edge case or the connectivity that they have is an edge case. And so we obviously -- we try to eliminate as many of those edge cases as possible.

所以，現在是否還會出現一些時不時出現的問題？當然。與之前的平台並無不同。所以——而且經常會出現一些特殊情況，無論是某人嘗試使用的特殊設備，還是某人嘗試使用的的特殊軟體，或是他們所擁有的特殊連接。因此，我們很顯然——我們會盡力消除盡可能多的極端情況。

But I feel like we're at a point where we have a good foundation now to build off of. And I think we learned a lot through this experience. And I think that we need to make sure that we have better redundancy and a lot of what we're trying to do is to ensure sort of better redundancy. We still have to rely on our third parties. And I'm hopeful that our third parties are going to continue to step up and be good partners.

但我感覺我們現在已經打下了良好的基礎，可以以此為基礎繼續發展。我認為我們從這次經歷中學到了很多。我認為我們需要確保有更好的冗餘機制，而我們正在努力做的很多事情就是為了確保有更好的冗餘機制。我們仍然需要依賴第三方。我希望我們的第三方合作夥伴能夠繼續挺身而出，成為優秀的合作夥伴。

And I think that we have, through this experience, gotten a lot of feedback from our customers. And a lot of it has to do with the user experience, how the workflows are, the sort of distinguishment in grade levels and sort of what's more appealing for lower grade levels versus middle-grade levels versus upper grade levels. And a lot of those things are things that over time, we can just continue to refine and build and iterate into our system and continue to get that feedback and improve. So I'm optimistic. I think we've got a long road ahead of us of creating really incredible experiences for our customers.

我認為，透過這次經歷，我們已經從客戶那裡獲得了許多回饋。許多方面都與使用者體驗有關，例如工作流程、年級劃分以及低年級、中年級和高年級學生對不同年級學生的吸引力。很多這類事情，隨著時間的推移，我們可以不斷地改進、建構和迭代到我們的系統中，並不斷獲得回饋和改進。所以我持樂觀態度。我認為，要為我們的客戶創造真正令人難以置信的體驗，我們還有很長的路要走。

And just to round out the answer, that's not exclusive to the academic elements of the experience. We are investing in a lot of elements of the experience that actually extend beyond the academic elements that just give a fuller, richer experience to the families.

最後補充一點，這不僅限於學術方面的體驗。我們正在投資體驗中的許多方面，這些方面實際上超越了學術層面，旨在為家庭提供更全面、更豐富的體驗。

Stephen Sheldon, William Blair.

史蒂芬謝爾頓，威廉布萊爾。

You have Pat McIlwee on for Stephen. And congratulations on all the progress you made this quarter. My first question, James, you've acknowledged that you still have some work to do here, but you've clearly made a ton of progress since the fall. So if we were to assume that you're largely past the issues you saw that last fall, how are you thinking about the risk from any negative word-of-mouth activity going forward and the risk to top of funnel trends heading into next year. Is there any sign that, that could have a more lasting impact?

帕特·麥克伊爾維將代替史蒂芬上場。恭喜你本季取得的所有進步。詹姆斯，我的第一個問題是，你已經承認你在這裡還有一些工作要做，但顯然自秋季以來你已經取得了很大的進步。因此，如果我們假設您基本上已經克服了去年秋季遇到的問題，您如何看待未來任何負面口碑活動帶來的風險，以及明年漏斗頂端趨勢面臨的風險？是否有任何跡象表明，這可能會產生更持久的影響？

Yeah. So I actually think that we were worried about that pretty acutely in the fall. And I think that we were concerned that, that sort of overhang, if you will, of bad press, bad word of mouth, whatever, would carry over into, I'll say, sort of a post normalization period. And we've just not seen evidence of that. In fact, I would actually suggest we've seen the opposite.

是的。所以我覺得，我們在秋天的時候確實非常擔心這個問題。我認為我們擔心的是，這種負面新聞、負面口碑等等的持續影響，會延續到所謂的後正常化時期。而我們至今尚未看到這方面的證據。事實上，我認為我們看到的恰恰相反。

We think that we had momentum in sort of word of mouth. I mentioned earlier that our demand characteristics continue to look strong, and they look strong in spite of us being less aggressive in the marketplace, as you can imagine, as we're sort of tempering our growth this year. And so when you see the organic strength that we've seen in demand, that would run counter to an assumption that there would be this overhang in sort of negative sentiment. I think it speaks to the macro conditions of our business that are very strong and the strength of 25 years operating this business as a leader. And the reality is if you're -- and this -- we've done some sort of, I'll say, focus groups or talk to some families about some of their experiences.

我們認為我們憑藉口碑傳播獲得了發展勢頭。我之前提到過，我們的需求特徵依然強勁，儘管我們在市場上的進取心有所減弱，正如你所想，因為我們今年正在放緩成長步伐。因此，當我們看到需求的自然成長動能時，就會發現這與負面情緒持續存在的假設相違背。我認為這體現了我們業務的宏觀環境非常強勁，以及我們作為行業領導者25年來的穩健發展。而現實情況是，如果你——而且——我們已經進行了一些，比如說，焦點小組訪談，或與一些家庭談論他們的一些經歷。

And if you're not in the market for this alternative, there's really no reason for you to hear the negative sentiment. And when you're in the market, largely, you're not going to the places where you're going to hear the negative sentiment because you need this alternative. And so we just haven't seen evidence that the demand characteristics are negatively impacted so far, at least by an overhang of sentiment around what happened this fall. We just haven't seen it.

如果你對這種替代方案不感興趣，那麼你真的沒有理由去聽那些負面評價。當你身處市場時，你大多不會去那些充滿負面情緒的地方，因為你需要這個替代方案。因此，到目前為止，我們還沒有看到任何證據表明需求特徵受到了負面影響，至少沒有受到今年秋天事件帶來的負面情緒的影響。我們只是還沒看到而已。

Okay. That's really encouraging. And one more on margins. I understand there was some onetime benefit to the gross margins this quarter, but G&A also took a nice step down. Can you talk about how you managed to drive that efficiency despite the unforeseen circumstances you were dealing with in the quarter and maybe some of the labor and capital that might have required?

好的。這真是令人鼓舞。再補充一點關於邊際效益的內容。我知道本季毛利率出現了一些一次性成長，但一般及行政費用也大幅下降。您能否談談您是如何在本季度應對不可預見的情況，以及可能需要投入的人力和資本的情況下，仍然實現如此高的效率的？

Yeah. One of the things that we have been talking about for the past couple of years is that we've got to -- internally, I say to our senior management team, we've got to remain disciplined during the good times. So when things are difficult that we can continue to maintain that level of discipline. We continue to be disciplined. With that discipline, there are a couple of other things that we've done.

是的。過去幾年我們一直在討論的一件事是，我們必須——我對我們的高階管理團隊說——在順境中，我們必須保持自律。所以，即使遇到困難，我們也能繼續保持這種自律水準。我們將繼續保持自律。憑藉著這種自律精神，我們還做了一些其他的事情。

And I said it in my prepared remarks, we continue to rightsize our adult business. Given the sort of stability and the focus on stability and not growth, we sort of pulled back on our marketing spend. And so those are some of the things that we've done to be able to reduce the costs in our SG&A. And so some of the additional costs you might expect given the impact of our platform challenges that we have, you would see those in our gross margins, not in our SG&A.

我在事先準備好的演講稿中也說過，我們將繼續調整成人業務的規模。鑑於公司目前的穩定性以及對穩定性而非成長的重視，我們減少了行銷支出。因此，以上是我們為降低銷售、一般及行政費用而採取的一些措施。因此，考慮到我們平檯面臨的挑戰所帶來的影響，您可能會預期的一些額外成本，將會體現在我們的毛利率中，而不是銷售、一般及行政費用中。

I also got to say, give a huge shout out to the team here. The team here that have been working to resolve some of these problems, I mean, they've been working 24/7 for the past several months, and they just don't give up. They're on top of it. I mean it's just -- it's really amazing to see how our mission has rallied our employees on behalf of our customers. And listen, again, it's not perfect.

我還要特別感謝一下我們團隊。這裡有一個團隊一直在努力解決這些問題，我的意思是，在過去的幾個月裡，他們一直在日以繼夜地工作，他們從不放棄。他們已經掌控了局面。我的意思是，看到我們的使命如何激勵員工為客戶服務，這真的令人驚嘆。再說一遍，它並不完美。

Not everything is perfect. But we just see a lot of employees just step up in amazing ways. I mean just the number of stories I could tell you that are countless on the way that the employees in this company just step up because they believe so much in our customers, and they want to help our customers so much that it's not sustainable, by the way. But you get a lot of leverage out of that when you have employees that are that committed.

世上沒有完美的東西。但我們看到很多員工都以令人驚嘆的方式挺身而出。我的意思是，我可以跟你講無數個故事，講述這家公司的員工如何挺身而出，因為他們非常相信我們的客戶，他們非常想幫助我們的客戶，順便說一句，這種情況是不可持續的。但是，當你的員工如此忠誠時，你就能從中獲得很大的優勢。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作說明）

Jeff Silber, BMO Capital Markets.

Jeff Silber，BMO資本市場。

I know you're focused on maintaining stability this year, and that makes a lot of sense. And then you're not going to give specific guidance next year, but I'm just curious, in terms of potential new partner pipeline, can you talk a little bit about that? And I'm just wondering how discussions are going based on what happened a few months ago, if there's been any change?

我知道你今年的重點是保持穩定，這很有道理。然後您表示明年不會給出具體指導，但我很好奇，關於潛在的新合作夥伴管道，您能談談這方面的情況嗎？我只是想知道，基於幾個月前發生的事情，目前的討論進展如何，是否有任何變化？

Yeah. So it's sort of an interesting and timely question only because I was visiting a potential partner last Friday. I won't give you the state, but it wasn't an easy state for me to fly in and out of it. And we dealt with the questions of what happened this fall pretty directly and I'll say, reputational issues that they might have questions around. And I spent a couple of good hours with this potential partner.

是的。所以這個問題既有趣又及時，因為我上週五正好在拜訪一位潛在的合作夥伴。我不會告訴你具體是哪個州，但對我來說，飛進飛出那個州並不容易。我們非常直接地處理了今年秋天發生的事情，我想說，這可能涉及他們的聲譽問題。我和這位潛在合作夥伴度過了幾個小時的美好時光。

They haven't signed yet, but they gave no indication that any issues that we've had, whether they're platform related or otherwise, by the way, reputational issues that may be floating around in the market. They're just sort of unconcerned because, again, and this is sort of, I guess, maybe how powerful the macro conditions are and the mission is that they really believe in what we're doing. They recognize that we're the leader. They want to help families in their state, and they think that their state deserves these types of alternatives, and they really want to be a part of it. And so again, I just -- I can't speak for every partner, every potential partner or whatever.

他們還沒有簽約，但他們沒有表示會解決我們遇到的任何問題，無論是平台相關的還是其他方面的，順便說一句，還有可能在市場上流傳的聲譽問題。他們似乎並不在意，因為，我想，這或許也說明了宏觀環境的強大，以及他們真心相信我們正在做的事情。他們承認我們是領導者。他們想幫助州內的家庭，他們認為本州應該有這類選擇，他們真心想參與其中。所以，我再次聲明——我不能代表每一位合作夥伴、每一位潛在合作夥伴等等發言。

I just happened to be visiting one last week, and there's no overhang that I have experienced from a potential partner on this past fall or sort of any events that have happened in this past year or so.

我上週正好去拜訪了一位，而且在過去的這個秋天，或者過去一年左右發生的任何事情中，我都沒有遇到任何潛在的伴侶，也沒有感受到任何負面影響。

Okay. That's very helpful. You also mentioned that you cut back a bit on marketing expenses in the second quarter. Should we expect that to ramp back up, especially in the fourth quarter as we're entering into the potential enrollment season?

好的。那很有幫助。您也提到，第二季您稍微削減了行銷費用。我們是否應該預期這種情況會再次好轉，尤其是在第四季度，因為我們即將進入潛在的招生季？

Our assumption for the back half of the year is that our SG&A will continue to benefit from some of the -- what you saw happening in the first half of the year. We want to sort of maintain that level of flexibility in Q4. We typically start to ramp up a little bit in Q4. And so we want to have some flexibility there. But when you think about the overall SG&A in the back half of the year, we will expect that number to continue to be reflective of what you saw in Q2 and maybe down a little bit. But we have some flexibility to ramp up on the marketing spend as we get to later in the fiscal year.

我們對下半年的假設是，銷售、一般及行政費用將繼續受益於上半年的一些情況。我們希望在第四季度保持這種靈活性。我們通常會在第四季開始逐步加大力度。所以我們希望在這方面有一定的彈性。但考慮到下半年的整體銷售、管理及行政費用，我們預計該數字將繼續反映第二季的情況，甚至可能略有下降。但是，隨著財年進入後期，我們有一定的彈性來增加行銷支出。

And I think that just from a planning perspective, we expect in the normal cadence of the rest of this fiscal year and going into next fiscal year to be in market business as usual. There is no expectation that we would not be returning to business as usual for the fall season in whatever cadence that is this year or next year.

而且我認為，從規劃的角度來看，我們預計在本財年剩餘時間和進入下一財年之際，市場業務將照常進行。我們預計，無論今年或明年秋季的節奏如何，我們都會恢復正常的業務運作。

With that, this concludes today's closing remarks. You may now disconnect.

至此，今天的閉幕致詞就結束了。您現在可以斷開連線了。