Running Online Middle And High Schools: Caprice Young, CEO of KC Distance Learning (Part 2)

SM: When you worked for IBM, what were you doing there?

CY: I was working in the e-business sector. I was leading the teams that were doing business engineering at the same time the technology fixes were going on. When a company would Web-enable a legacy system, my teams would be working with the business to restructure their process to take full advantage of the new technology. It was a lot of fun.

SM: Is your current venture a company that you started? What is the genesis of KC Distance Learning?

CY: The company I now run was actually started 30 years ago as a small correspondence school out of Pennsylvania. It offered degrees by mail. KinderCare care bought it and used it as its cash cow. It made just enough money for them to open new KinderCare centers every year; otherwise, they left it alone. Knowledge Universe bought KinderCare, and the company that I run came with it.

I was hired a year ago to take over as CEO. The company now includes three different brands. Keystone is the private school that continues to do degree-granting programs at high school and middle school levels. The parents of the students sign him up and enroll him. It is a private school education. Another brand is called IQ Partners with charter schools to run their online programs. That is a public offering. Aventa is our third offering and it is our curriculum. We work with over 1,000 schools in the country supplying their online curricula. Usually, we support their hosting and teaching as well.

SM: Can you break that down by each business unit and help me understand the strategy behind each? Where are the businesses in terms of their maturity, and how has the company built them?

CY: The private school, Keystone, is what started 30 years ago. It has a very basic business model. Students sign up and take a full load of courses, which is typically five or six courses, but some kids do take seven or eight. Students do their entire diploma program online.

SM: What is the diploma?

CY: It is a high school diploma.

SM: It’s an online high school?

CY: A lot of students now start from sixth grade and go all the way through to twelfth grade.

SM: So you have middle school curricula as well?

CY: Yes, we do. Also, sometimes students want to take a course online just to catch up with something. Some students sign up to take one or two courses. If they live in a very rural area and there is no calculus teacher, they can sign up and take calculus through us.

SM: So in essence you’re providing a sixth grade through twelfth grade online school. Is that a correct summary?

CY: Yes, that’s correct. Our kids are amazing as well. If you go to the U.S. Department of Education website, you will find that they’re having a video contest. Out of the top ten finalists in the country, two of them are Keystone students. One of those two children lives in Tanzania. A significant portion of our student base is outside of United States because they are sons and daughters of expatriates.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Running Online Middle And High Schools: Caprice Young, CEO of KC Distance Learning
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