Student Mobility in K-12 Online Schools

Senate Bill 19-129, concerning the regulation of online schools, calls for the Colorado Department of Education's Office of Blended and Online Learning to produce an annual report on the number of students who withdraw from Colorado K-12 online schools after the pupil enrollment count date. An initial report on this topic was included in the 2019 Online Summary Report (ED610712) as an appendix. Beginning in 2020, the information will be shared in a standalone report and will be released annually. This report is required to include the dates on which students withdrew from enrollment, the grade level at which the students were enrolled at the beginning of the school year, the grade levels at which the students were enrolled when the students transferred, and information on whether the students enrolled in another public or private school, homebased education setting, or graduated or completed high school within the same year. Based on an analysis of the 2018-19 data for students enrolled in an online school, the three most widely assigned exit codes are for students withdrawing and transferring to a school in another school district (n=1,115), students dropping out (n=1,074), and students transferring to a non-public home-based education setting (n=813). The data from 2018-19 compared to data from the 2017-18 year showed a slight decline in student withdrawals and a slight increase in the number of students who were coded as completing the school year and not exiting at any time during the year.