Stride Inc (LRN) 2012 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the second-quarter 2012 K12 Incorporated earnings conference call. My name is Tahisha, and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes.

I would now like to turn the conference over to your host for today, Mr. Harry Hawks, CFO. Please proceed.

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to the K12 second-quarter fiscal year 2012 earnings conference call. Before we begin, the Company would like to remind you that statements made during this conference call and that are not historical facts may be considered forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those expressed or implied.

In addition, this conference call contains time-sensitive information that reflects management's best analysis only as of the date of this live call. K12 does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. For further information concerning issues that could materially affect financial performance related to forward-looking statements, please refer to K12's Form 10-Q and 10-K filings with the SEC. These filings can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website, www.K12.com.

In addition to disclosing results in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the US, or in other words GAAP, we will discuss certain information that is considered non-GAAP financial information. A reconciliation of this non-GAAP financial information to the most closely comparable GAAP information was included in our earnings release and is also posted on our website.

This call is open to the public and is being webcast simultaneously on our website. The call will be available for replay there for 60 days.

With me on today's call is Ron Packard, Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we will answer any questions you may have. I will now turn the call over to Ron.

Good morning, and welcome to our earnings call for the second quarter of fiscal year 2012. Our revenue for the quarter was $166.5 million and EBITDA was $21.9 million. The quarter had increased revenue from higher-than-anticipated in-year enrollments offset by revenue adjustments related to potential funding reductions. These potential funding reductions had an adverse effect not only on revenue, but also an almost dollar-for-dollar effect on operating income and EBITDA.

To begin, I'm pleased to report that just days ago, the Washington State Board of Education conferred upon the Washington Virtual Academies its prestigious 2011 Washington Achievement Award in the category of improvement. The notification letter explained that the highly-selective award is to celebrate the state's top-performing schools based on performance on a comprehensive measurement index. We are proud to be affiliated with these schools.

Turning to other developments in the past quarter, our core online public-school business continues to experience a favorable business development environment. Most recently, on February 1, the governor of Wisconsin signed a bill that increased the state's open-enrollment period from three weeks to three months and established a process for year-round enrollments in certain cases. Taken in combination with the prior elimination of the virtual charter school enrollment cap, we believe thousands of additional Wisconsin students could enroll this upcoming fall.

Additionally, educational liberty took a big step forward in Iowa with the approval of a new statewide virtual academy. This online public school will serve students in the Clayton Ridge School District and statewide in grades K through 6 beginning next year, and will expand to middle and high school students in subsequent years. Using Iowa-certified teachers to satisfy the demand for personalized learning programs, the Iowa Virtual Academy will help children succeed in ways not previously available in the state.

We have also made further inroads in Florida. Last year, a law was enacted that allows virtual charter schools on a county-by-county basis, and we are affiliated with numerous applications to do so. This quarter, we received a first approval in Osceola County.

In addition, we are still seeing promising results in sales of our institutional products to school districts throughout the state. We anticipate that Florida will be served by a variety of schools that we manage, as well as school districts that manage their own programs using our technology and curriculum.

As mentioned earlier, in-year enrollments continue to be better than forecast. Student retention rates are also similar to last year despite our significant growth in enrollment. We believe this reflects high customer satisfaction and a growing demand for our virtual school offerings.

Interest in individualized education options, from virtual academies to hybrid schools to online district programs, remain strong. Total average enrollments at the end of the quarter increased to approximately 144,000, a 46% increase as compared to the same period in the prior year. Counted on a full-time equivalent basis, these enrollments include students in managed schools, private schools and online programs offered by school districts. In fact, over the past two months, our institutional sales business to school districts has closed more than 200 contracts with school districts, and we have not seen any slowdown in new district opportunities.

Our private school business, which now serves students in 85 countries, continues to grow. Enrollments at our K-12 International Academy and Keystone Schools each increased by approximately 30% year-over-year.

During the quarter, we announced the opening of the Dubai Women's College High School, a cooperative venture to provide young women with a high-quality international education delivered in English. One year ago, we made an investment in Web International English, a private-pay English language learning company in China. Web's performance remains strong and has now expanded to 103 learning centers in 53 cities. We are currently evaluating our option to acquire the remaining 80% of Web.

At K12, we remain focused on developing and distributing world-class curriculum. In fact, our curriculum just received a Readers' Choice award from District Administration magazine, a publication that covers matters of importance to principals and superintendents.

We have also created new ways for students to access our curriculum. For example, we now have 31 e-books available across our core subjects, and we have surpassed 300,000 downloads of our mobile apps. More apps and e-books are on the way later this fiscal year.

K12 is undeterred in its mission of maximizing a child's potential, regardless of circumstance. We continue to build outstanding curriculum and managed schools. We are blessed to have so many teachers who have the passion to deliver a great education that improves the lives of their students. Parents regularly contact us with reports of how their children make great progress in the schools we manage, and how they view this form of educational liberty as a means to a more productive future for their children.

I want to take this opportunity to personally thank all the committed employees of K12 for their dedication and hard work that allows us to make a tremendous difference in student lives. I also want to thank our investors who have supported us and remain committed to our mission.

Before I turn the call over to Harry Hawks, I want to mention that we are updating our guidance for the year. We are maintaining our previous revenue guidance of at least $680 million and updating our EBITDA guidance to a range of $85 million to $95 million.

Finally, we will be holding an Investor Day on March 15. The details will follow in the next few days. At that time, we will present the most recent data and research on academic performance of our students in our managed schools. I hope to see all of you there. Now I will turn the call over to Harry.

Thank you, Ron. Good morning to all of you participating in our call and webcast. I will address a few key topics before we open the call for your questions.

First, I will quickly summarize our second quarter and six months year-to-date results as compared to the comparable period last year. Revenue in the quarter of $166.5 million is an increase of over 29%. On a year-to-date basis, approximately $360 million of revenue is a 36% increase over prior year. EBITDA of $21.8 million is a decrease of 10%. However, the year-to-date revenue -- excuse me -- EBITDA of $43 million is an increase over prior year of about 10%.

Operating income for the quarter is $7.1 million, and year-to-date operating income of $15.4 million, or a decrease over prior year on a year-to-date basis of about $4 million. Net income, $4.2 million in the quarter, $8.8 million year to date. On a year-to-date basis, that is about a $1 million decrease versus prior year. EPS in the quarter, $0.11; year to date, $0.23. $0.23 compares to $0.30 prior-year.

Second, it is worth another comment -- as Ron mentioned, we made a revenue adjustment in the quarter to allow for potential funding cuts which may occur, and we thought that was prudent to do. That is unusual for us. We have never had that kind of situation before. Over the past number of years, the net total adjustments made throughout the year was actually net positive. And so this is an unusual item, where we are reacting, we believe, in a prudent way to a short list of just a low single-digit number of states where there may be changes in funding.

Third, I would like to comment how that affects the sequential look at the numbers. We've talked about the comparison to the comparable period last year. On a sequential basis, where many of you frequently take a look at the normal seasonal pattern of our business, the effect of these adjustments distorts the normal seasonal step-down between Q1 and Q2. This particular second quarter reflects a $26.8 million reduction in revenue versus Q1, or about 13.9%. In contrast, last year between Q1 and Q2, the reduction was $5.9 million or 4.4%. If you go back to fiscal '10, the reduction was around 12%. So the reduction is exacerbated by the adjustments previously mentioned.

Also, on expenses, it is worth making a comment about the sequential trend in expenses. Instructional costs decreased from $108 million to about $101 million. SG&A decreased from $71 million to $51 million. Professional development was up slightly about $1 million in the period. In total, operating expenses, total operating expenses decreased from $185 million down to $159 million. That is a nearly $26 million or 14% decrease sequentially from Q1 to Q2.

I will also point out something we don't talk about much on this call is on a year-to-date basis, we are actually about within 1% of our internal plan on expenses. So the results in Q2 are almost all exclusively the result of the adjustments to revenue.

Fourth point, our financial position is excellent. We have substantial liquidity and financial flexibility. At December 31, our cash balance was around $134 million and our working capital position was quite strong. We had zero bank debt and only about $33 million of computer-related capital leases outstanding.

The reduction in cash from June 30, our fiscal year-end, is almost entirely related to the seasonal buildup in accounts receivable, funding of investments in CapEx during the period and, to a great extent, the provision of working capital the schools acquired in the Kaplan transaction and new schools that we have launched for this year.

Cash at December 31 was actually essentially flat, however, with September 30, after about a $14 million reduction in accounts payable and accrued liabilities, about $13 million in CapEx during the period, and other related expenses. Therefore, indicating good liquidity within the quarter.

Fifth, the financial strength of our Company also gives us the wherewithal to develop leading online curriculum, take risks on new technologies and continually reinvest in our Company. In fact, to date, we've invested over $260 million in curriculum, technology and learning platforms. The capital investments made during the quarter and included in our full-year forecast are almost all related to curriculum development, software development and systems enhancements. These important investments support our education mission first and foremost, while also contributing to a scalable infrastructure to support our growth.

We have provided updated fiscal 2012 guidance in the press release. To quickly summarize, we expect revenue of $680 million to $690 million, EBITDA of $85 million to $95 million, depreciation and amortization of $53 million to $57 million. I will note that at six months year-to-date, depreciation and amortization is around $27.7 million, so it looks like that is on track. Capital expenditures of about $45 million; year-to-date, that is around $21 million. Capital leases of around $20 million.

The tax provision of 44% to 46% is the guidance, largely driven by a reduction in non-tax-deductible items this year. In the quarter, the tax provision was 43.4%; on a six-month year-to-date basis, it is 44.8%. So the tax provision guidance looks in line.

We have previously mentioned that transaction expenses, system implementation expenses, startup losses are also included in this year. The estimates given above actually give effect to those costs and expenses, and they are baked into those numbers.

Last comment -- you will notice that we filed a 10-KA on December 8, 2011. The numbers didn't change. The amendment was only to incorporate XBRL compliance in support of the TCV registration statement, which indeed was a full S-1, as we were not able to utilize S-3 in that particular case.

Operator, we would be pleased to take questions at this time.

(Operator Instructions) Suzi Stein, Morgan Stanley.

First of all, I wanted to just confirm that there are no one-time charges in the quarter.

Well, there are some. We just didn't break them out.

Can you give us a sense of what the one-time charges would be?

Well, the transaction-related expenses, systems development costs, are consistent with what we said at the beginning, in the first quarter. And we said there -- and we haven't updated it or changed it -- that -- hang on a second. Let me just get it, and I will give it to you.

I believe we said $6 million to $7 million. Sorry, since we are not -- we didn't bother to break it out this time, I want to go back to first quarter and make sure I get it right to you. Why don't you continue and I will come back (multiple speakers)?

Okay, sure. The Q2 students in managed schools increase versus Q1, I know you touched on it. But can you give us just a little more insight into why that number changed so significantly?

What we are seeing is, we are seeing, again, some stronger than anticipated student demand. So remember, we had seen for the year in September and October much more growth in enrollment than we had thought we would have. And that trend is continuing.

So we are continuing to see an increase in the number of students and student demand. And we are also seeing the cost -- what it costs us to get a lead is going down and conversion rates are higher. So we are just -- the in-year enrollment is continuing the trend of stronger than anticipated student demand.

So following the negative press that started in December, has there been any change whatsoever, or are you just seeing kind of business as usual and the demand holding up?

We have seen no perceptible change in student demand at all. In fact, you might think it is even stronger than anticipated. But in general, we can see no observable effect on student demand of any of the events of the fall.

Okay, all right. Great. Thank you.

Suzi, just to follow up, what was mentioned in our Q1 release was the following. Transaction, merger, integration, system implementation, related costs of $6 million to $7 million for the year; losses from start-up initiatives of $5 million to $6 million for the year. We said that would be more front-end loaded in the year, and so -- in terms of the transaction costs, and that is largely correct. In terms of initiatives, losses from startups, there is probably another couple of million bucks in the back half of the year for that.

But the reason we didn't break it out, just to be clear, in the second quarter release is that we are going to live with these kind of expenses, and we are not providing adjusted EBITDA or a schedule of one-time-only type of expenses. We are just going to live with them and report numbers to you as they are reported. So we are trying to be even more and more conservative, and when we give you an EBITDA number, it is fully loaded.

Okay, all right. Great. Thank you.

Sara Gubins, Bank of America.

I wanted to follow up on the comment about the $8 million adjustment to revenue because of funding. Can you just talk about what you are seeing in the states that you think will lead to that lower revenue? And when would you expect to know for sure?

Sure. I can take that. There is a few states where there has been some kind of -- I don't want to say statements or whatever -- that there may be funding reductions. And that is different than -- we try to model out always what we expect for funding and we leave some room to have some. So we just felt it was prudent to take into account that this could happen, which means you adjust your revenue downwards for the quarter and take into account what happened for the first quarter as well.

These are by no means certain. I would describe them as possible, but not certain. So if they don't happen, then it becomes very easy for us to make numbers at the top end of the guidance. And if it doesn't, you're pushed down from there.

But it is a hard thing to do, right, because we have to estimate continuously what funding will be in states and have to try to reflect in the financials anything that we hear that becomes possible to happen. If that helps. And when you do that, it is a one-for-one effect not only on revenue, but also on EBITDA and operating income.

And when do you think you would know about this? This isn't typically the budget season for states, so this would be a midyear budget cut?

It absolutely would be a midyear type of cut. And like I said, previously, up probably until 2008, you never really saw much adjustments or anything in the middle of a school year. They were set in the summer. And then as states had more fiscal tightness, you've seen in various times in the last several years funding cuts. And sometimes we see funding increases as well.

So generally, I would like to believe that we would come to certainty on whether these will happen or not in the next few months. So I would think by April, we would know with certainty yes, they are happening or no, they are not happening.

Okay. And then I know that you don't model it this way, but we look at revenue per average student. And even if I take out that $8 million, it was still down 7% year-over-year, which was well below what we saw in the first quarter.

So I'm trying to understand what would be driving that, if it is mix shift across the states or maybe funding cuts that you've already seen. If you can give any clarity on that.

I think there are two things I can say to that that will probably help. When you compare year over year with the previous year's quarter, that had an adjustment where this had this $8 million down, I believe -- and Harry can confirm this -- it had a $4 million adjustment up, as it became a positive variance a quarter ago. So that would give you another $4 million when you're looking at a quarter-over-quarter -- this second quarter versus last year's second quarter.

But there also -- as you have the institutional managed programs growing at a slightly faster rate, there is some mix shift to a slightly lower revenue from that mix shift.

Okay. And then last, if you could talk about the new state pipeline and whether or not you have seen any increased questions following up on The New York Times articles from either regulators or legislators.

With that, I think we are still in the process. We are very happy, obviously, that we are going to be opening in Iowa. And we seem to be doing pretty well in that dimension. I think there are several other very good probability candidates.

Do we see questions about it? Yes. I mean, is it affecting it? I think it is too early to tell. I think we will have a much better idea from that over the coming three to six months as the picture becomes clearer. But we see some questions, but it doesn't seem to be having a significant adverse effect to date, but that doesn't mean it won't.

Okay. Thank you.

Kelly Flynn, Credit Suisse.

I have a couple questions. First of all, just back to the state funding issue that Sara was just asking about. Can you just clarify what exactly happened that was worse than your expectations? I mean, I think last quarter and in the past, you have had pretty good visibility on trends, at least maybe sort of three to six months out. So what exactly did you see that was so dramatically different than what you expected?

In the last -- it was really in the last several weeks, last few weeks, that we in a few states basically had information that came to us that said there may be this much for people funding reduction, one state having to do with some policies and the other state having to do with just budget-related cuts. And so we basically just got that information and thought it was prudent to put it in there, while we are obviously still in discussions to make sure that -- to try to make this not happen.

But we just -- so we usually have pretty good visibility, but a lot of what you see is sometimes there is positive adjustments and negative, and this just happened to be more material than usual in these type of adjustments. But that is what happened. And it was in -- I guess there are issues in potentially two or three states that are driving this, and we just thought it was prudent to make the adjustment.

Is this, I guess, a theme that we could extrapolate? Is it to do with just, I guess, late-cycle pressures or I think you mentioned policy decisions?

I wouldn't extrapolate this trend. I've been doing this probably now 12 years, and we haven't seen this very often. I don't know if you remember, but I think it was back in the '08, '09 year, we saw some of this happening in the spring because of the massive recession. But I wouldn't anticipate it. Usually they are not necessarily material because K12 has got so many -- we are so diversified in terms of our states and portfolio that it doesn't tend to -- and there tends to be always be offsetting effects.

So I wouldn't extrapolate this trend. But it is a constant thing that we do, is adjust estimates if we get new information. And this just happened to be more material this last quarter.

Okay, great. And then second question just relates to the guidance. Historically, the second half is -- I don't know -- let's say 35% to 45% of the annual EBITDA. So given that, I'm a little surprised you didn't reduce the EBITDA guidance -- well, you didn't reduce it -- but I am surprised you did not reduce it.

So that said, can you talk about some of the mechanics? First of all, the revenue. What kind of sequential revenue growth should we expect in the third quarter and the fourth quarter? And maybe specifically address this $8 million adjustment. Is there kind of an extra adjustment in the quarter because you included a Q1 adjustment, and therefore revenue should grow sequentially? Or how should we think about that in the third quarter?

I'll take the high-level, and then Harry can follow on on this. So essentially, when you have these adjustment, it made -- the second quarter took a disproportionate hit than normal. And then we re-forecast based on the new information. And in addition to -- we were able to streamline our cost structure to additionally reduce expenses for the next two quarters to offset some of what these funding reductions would -- are.

So the combination of the two allowed us to maintain basically the midpoint of our EBITDA guidance of where it was on the first-quarter call. So it is a combination of -- those possible funding reductions are being offset by two things. One is student enrollment continues to be stronger, so we will see increased revenue from higher enrollment. And then also, we've made expense adjustments to the next two quarters to reflect -- to offset the rest of the difference. Harry, do you want to add to that?

Yes, I will. First thing, I want to actually add a little bit of emphasis to a point Ron has already made. The process of trying to manage and calibrate the revenue recognition state by state by state is a dynamic process that goes on, frankly, every single month. It is a normal, routine management activity of the Company to work with state audits, confirming enrollment numbers. So there is an ebb and flow every single month as we work to make the numbers right. So this is unusual for us. But it is not at all unusual that every single month we try to stay on top of this, one state at a time.

Moving on to the guidance, let me be -- I'm going to make a real attempt to be responsive and helpful, but I just need to caution that anything I say here is not changing or amending the guidance that we just gave in the press release this morning. Because we give annual guidance only, and that is the guidance we give. And that is kind of, frankly, how we manage the business on an annual basis versus a quarter.

However, in the spirit of trying to be responsive, if you take -- we said that revenue is anywhere from $680 million to $690 million. If you use $690 million as an example, obviously at $360 million year-to-date revenue, that means $330 million in the back half of the year. That does represent the normal sort of seasonal relationship that we have of less revenue in the back half of the year than the first half of the year.

As you look at the implication of an EBITDA range of $85 million to $95 million, or a depreciation and amortization range, which I guess the midpoint is $55 million, that puts you in the $30 million to $40 million range on operating income, as implied by the full-year guidance.

If you come at it the other way, from what does that mean on expense, then that means that year-to-date expense is $344 million, $345 million. And then if you sort of once again stick with this same sort of what's implied for expenses in the back half of the year, you would say that is $310 million, or if you will, a decrease in expenses from the first half.

But what is implied in the full-year guidance, if you just subtract away the actual year-to-date, is something that does indeed represent the normal seasonal pattern of slightly lower revenues in the back half, slightly lower expenses in the back half, to get to the incremental EBITDA contribution from the back half.

Should we be able to perform at the higher end of the revenue, there are some variable costs that would go up and so therefore the costs would go up accordingly. But I don't know, from the way we look at it, what is implied by our full-year guidance, subtracting out year to date, seems to be in line with prior seasonal patterns.

To the point Ron made of continuing to engineer cost efficiencies and operating leverage, we are indeed trying to do that. So we do hope to see a return to, if you will, gathering operating leverage out of growth.

And then I think your question was third quarter versus fourth quarter. I think I will respectfully, politely just leave my comments as second half rather than third quarter versus fourth quarter. But anyway.

What I am trying to figure out is just this $8 million hit. Is it double counting? Because it is including kind of a -- something that should have really been in Q1, and so you're kind of going to pick up some revenue in the third quarter relative to Q2.

Well, I guess I have to repeat what I just said.

Okay, no. Sorry. We can talk about it off-line. I don't want to take up too much of the call. Thank you.

Jeff Silber, BMO Capital Markets.

Just one more question about the guidance. You had mentioned the potential for expense reduction in the second half of the year. Are there any specific line items where you may have an impact on that more than others?

We went through -- they're really -- they are going to hit almost every line, but there will be a significant amount coming out of SG&A would probably be the bigger one. There is lots -- it is easier to do that than it is obviously the instructional expense. So I think you'd find -- and I think you'll also see something come out of product development, as well. So I would say -- but there will be expense reductions in all three lines. That is what management does, is we react to news and we make the adjustments. So I think you will see it in all of them, but probably a little less so in instructional costs.

Okay, great. I appreciate that. I want to go back to the environment generally for your business and others in your area. I know in my state, and particularly in New Jersey, we've seen a lot of backlash from some folks in local school districts opposing the progress of charter schools, more because of fiscal issues, saying that the money is being taken away from their local school districts. I know you operate more on a state level, but are you seeing that kind of negativity across some of the states that you are operating in as well?

The reaction you described against charter schools, I've pretty much been watching that since 1997, since I got involved in education. We see less of it because we are taking such a small percentage of kids from any district. You might see a district having 1% or 2% of the kids, that it becomes a much lower effect. Whereas if I opened up a brick-and-mortar charter school, you could take 400 or 500 kids from a single district. So I think it is less that type of reaction.

Generally, I think the business development environment with regard to charter schools as a whole, maybe not at the local township level, but generally, I think there is becoming increased awareness that there is a lot of charter schools that do a great job in offering kids more choices. I think the movement is actually gaining steam more than losing steam. But that is just my observation of it.

I think the other thing that we are seeing with our schools is because we are taking a lot of the kids that the system has already failed. And you look at what we are doing in Chicago with dropouts, I am seeing tremendous demand for how we can use kind of hybrid settings or perhaps full-time virtual to allow kids who were either going to drop out or have dropped out of schools to succeed.

So I think it's hard to make a gross generalization. I think it depends on the individual situation.

Okay. Appreciate the color. Thanks so much.

Mike Malouf, Craig Hallum.

If I could just move the conversation to Web International. Can you talk a little bit about what decisions need to be made before you complete that transaction?

And then assuming that that does get complete, can you talk a little bit about the potentials there for revenue acceleration and any changes that you might actually implement with regards to doing that? Or is it just going to be just a standalone company, without any impact? Thanks.

Sure. So Web continues to grow very rapidly, I think faster than we expected it to grow. And so what is happening is we need to do obviously extensive financial due diligence to make sure the company is what we believe it is in the information we get. And then we also need to prepare internally so that when we acquire a controlling interest that we can consolidate it.

I believe the opportunities for Web are immense. Given the size of the -- obviously, the Chinese and the consumer-paid nature, we believe it could continue to grow at these high rates for a long time.

We've already opened one center -- they've already opened a center dealing with younger children that could potentially also benefit from K12's content. So I think once we have it, you'll continue to do business as they're doing it, because it's doing incredibly well. But I think adding some online wraparound products and also adding more centers geared towards younger children, as opposed to young adults, just completely expands the potential of that business immensely.

Okay, great. Thanks. And then how is Kaplan faring, and are you still on track for profitability next year?

Kaplan -- there are two things from that acquisition. One was the private schools, which we've actually transitioned most of those children into one of our existing three schools. So that part has gone very well.

And then with regard to the Insight network of schools, I think we will be -- because basically, we couldn't change the core operating model very much in the short time, given that we took those on in July. But I think with the change of the core operating model, we will be able to move those to where they are contributing in the coming 2013 year.

Okay, good. Thank you.

Jeff Meuler, Baird.

Hate to beat the dead horse, but given the magnitude of the impact, just want to circle back one more time on the $8 million and make sure that I got this right.

So you are not taking a more conservative approach or anything to how you account for it. You've always had these adjustments, but the magnitude is bigger and maybe it is because the change was in one of your larger states this year. Is that the way to think about it?

I think that is generally right. We've always made these kind of adjustments, and it is not a science. Until you have 100% certainty that it will or won't happen, you are constantly estimating how likely is something to happen. And so you make judgment calls, and we try to err on the prudent side. If there is a possibility, we will try to make those adjustments. And I think it is -- one of the states is one of the larger states. So just to be prudent, we are making that adjustment this quarter.

Your point is right -- because it's a larger state and it is more than one, the magnitude is amplified. But it is a normal process for what we do on a quarterly basis. It is just unusual that it happens in the midyear like it has happened, and the state is a little larger.

Okay. And then the second one -- and maybe I am front-running the information you are planning to provide at the upcoming Analyst Day -- but obviously good to hear that the negative articles haven't had an impact on the business thus far.

But Ron, what are you guys looking at doing to maybe have better third-party data or something like that that you can present on student performance to have some of the press accounts be more positive and kind of really use more of a data-oriented way in terms of the way that you look at the data, instead of just looking at the average test scores?

That's right, and thank you for asking that. What we are planning -- what we've been doing for a long time internally is we have looked basically, and we've been administering a third-party nationally normed test for several years now. And what we basically have looked at internally is how are the gains of our students compared to gains for national norm. So you can measure what students are actually learning and how much they should be learning. So we've been doing that for a while.

So I think what we are planning to do is work more with outside researchers than we had done previously, and basically communicate pretty clearly that -- one is that the virtual schools now are bringing in kids who were significantly behind grade level, for the most part, and then we are actually generating gains with those kids.

So I think one of the things we are doing a lot more of -- we've always looked at it internally ourselves, but we are, I think, beefing up the analytic capability of the Company and we're working with more third parties to actually publish some of these things. So that is a process that is underway and we hope to have some of this and be able to share it with you on March 15.

Okay. Thanks, Ron.

Joe Janssen, Barrington Research.

This is Joe Janssen filling in for Alex Paris. Ron, maybe can you just dive a bit deeper with regards to enrollment, and talk about the growth? And is that across from board, or are some states driving the majority of that growth?

It is pretty much across the board that the states are performing ahead of forecast. Obviously, the cap states are capped, so you are not seeing any growth there, but you couldn't anyway. But we are seeing -- pretty much across the board, we are seeing higher than forecast growth. It is an across the country thing. It doesn't seem to depend on necessarily a region or a state. It is everywhere.

And I think it is a combination of this model of education, which is a great choice for a lot of kids, is taking root. And an important point to emphasize is, one, we take everybody who comes to us. And everyone in our school has chosen to be there. And the reason they've chosen to be there is because what we are delivering, whether it be an incredible curriculum or great teachers, works for them. And that is just getting out. Our customer satisfaction remains extremely high, and a large percentage of our kids come to us because they are referred from existing students, which is the best testimony to what we do.

Great. And just to follow up on Suzi's question about The New York Times article, you've talked about the student demand side, no effect. The political side, you won't know for another three to six months. Can you just talk about maybe the institutional and sales side of the business, if you have seen any drop-off?

Yes, on the institutional side of the business, I think I mentioned in the call, in the last two months we've signed over 200 new contracts with school districts. So that business seems to be continuing to go unaffected, to the best we can tell from any of the articles.

And again, school districts are pretty sophisticated customers and they looked at the curriculum, they looked at the product, and they can see it is great. So I didn't -- we didn't expect it to affect that much, because the products are good. And we spent $260 million developing it.

Now, school distracts don't need to worry about whether 75% of the kids coming to the virtual schools are behind because it doesn't affect what they are doing. What they are trying to do is buy the best product for what their needs are, and we believe we have that.

Great. I'll jump back in queue.

(Operator Instructions) Gary Bisbee, Barclays Capital.

I just wanted to follow up on the, I guess, two questions ago about what you are doing in light of trying to tell a better story after that New York Times article. One of the -- in your press release sort of response to that, one of the things you mentioned was having provided data around the adequate yearly progress, about the longer the students are in your schools, the better they did or the better the progress was. It actually said you gave that data to the reporter.

Is that data that you've published publicly for investors or is it data that is available out there? I guess I was just sort of curious if you are providing data to a reporter, but you haven't given it publicly, if it was positive, it would certainly make a lot of sense in my view for all of us to see it.

We have had in previous investor decks for several years a chart that showed that students who are with us seven years do better than six, do better than five, do better than four. So that data had been in public investor decks for several years now.

And that is what you are referring to in that?

I believe so. I mean, I have to look at it specifically, but generally we had provided for those decks how kids do based on longevity with the schools. And that has been I think at least for two years in the investor presentations.

Okay, all right. Fair enough (multiple speakers).

And also, if you look at our annual meeting deck, which I think is on our website, you will see kind of a summary of what we know and don't know academically in there as well. And it mentions that same fact in that particular PowerPoint slide.

Thank you very much.

Charles Nguyen, Neuberger.

How is the Board thinking about the cash on the balance sheet at this point? Have their priorities changed at all, given the pullback in the stock? Thanks.

No, I don't think we have let the stock price change what we do in any way, shape or form. I think the only difference is we would be more reluctant to use it as a currency for acquisitions.

But we are happy to have such a healthy balance sheet, and as I've mentioned previously, we are not looking at any large acquisitions, and we like having the cash. And I think we will -- obviously, very serious about potentially buying the rest of Web. And then we're looking at some small acquisitions, but nothing significant. So I don't think it has changed in any way, shape or form, other than our -- whether we would actually use it as a currency.

Great. Thanks.

Gentlemen, we have no more questions in queue. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Ron Packard for any closing remarks.

All right. Well, thank you very much. We look forward to seeing we hope most of you at the Investor Day on March 15. Please look for the details, and we will be able to share a lot of things at that point in time. Thanks again.

Goodbye, everybody.

Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.