Three Missouri Districts Reported Sharp Growth After a Virtual Enrollment Reporting Change

Tue, 26 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Correction (October 8, 2026): The supported district and named-program counts below have been independently reconciled to authenticated state files. The earlier series-year correction remains part of the record. We have withdrawn exact statewide totals and shares, and the claim that the first reported program rows prove the programs first opened then or that the law caused all the recorded growth. Historical guidance also changed where already-participating students were enrolled. Campus names and counts do not establish physical classroom attendance, and suppressed school totals remain unknown.

Sturgeon R-V^↗ reported 504 students in 2000-01 and 402 in 2021-22. Its published count then rose by 1,111 in 2022-23. In preliminary 2025-26, last school year and the most recent year in these files, the district reported 3,051. Its separately published MOCA-S program row reported 2,658.

That is a large change in the district’s reported K12 enrollment. It is not a count of students physically attending schools in Sturgeon, nor does the annual series identify how many previously attended another public district, a private school or a homeschool.

Three complete district histories

Grandview R-II^↗ reported 645 students in 2021-22 and 5,198 in preliminary 2025-26, a gain of 4,553, or 705.9%. Sturgeon went from 402 to 3,051, gaining 2,649, or 659.0%. Laquey R-V^↗ went from 582 to 3,328, gaining 2,746, or 471.8%.

The three declared districts together went from 1,629 to 11,577, a net gain of 9,948. Each district has a complete, finite published kindergarten-through-12th-grade history across 2000-01 through preliminary 2025-26. Preschool is excluded. This combined count adds three published district totals; it is not a statewide aggregate or a measure of new students entering public education.

First reporting is not first operation

The MOCAP guidance retained publicly by Dent-Phelps identifies Missouri Virtual Academy with Grandview, Missouri Connections Academy with Sturgeon and Missouri Digital Academy with Laquey as hosted programs. Its historical enrollment instructions distinguish a student’s district of residence from the host district.

That distinction matters for interpreting the change in these files. The guidance says students already participating in full-time hosted programs before August 2022 would need to withdraw from resident-district enrollment and enroll in their host district. It also designates a virtual-program attendance center within the host district. A new attendance-center row or larger host-district count can therefore reflect a reporting change as well as changes in participation. The annual enrollment files do not separate those contributions.

In the observed building files, the named program rows first appear under these three hosts in 2022-23. Grandview’s district count rose by 1,704 that year, or 264.2%, while its Missouri Virtual Academy row reported 1,720. Sturgeon’s district count rose by 1,111, or 276.4%, while MOCA-S reported 1,094. Laquey’s district gained 173, and its Missouri Digital Academy row reported 172.

Those are first observed reporting records in this source window, not proof that the programs did not operate earlier. They also show why a program’s reported count and a district’s net annual change should not be treated as interchangeable.

The three districts’ combined annual increases were 2,988 in 2022-23, 2,144 in 2023-24, 2,418 in 2024-25 and 2,398 in preliminary 2025-26. Those increases varied; the final one was slightly smaller than the preceding one. The figures support substantial recorded growth, rather than a claim that it never slowed.

Large changes within a declared comparison set

Among 426 districts with published counts at both 2021-22 and preliminary 2025-26 and at least two hundred students at the starting endpoint, Grandview ranked first by percentage growth, Sturgeon second and Laquey third. Eminence R-I^↗ ranked fourth at 184.8%; its final district count was 729 and its separately reported Eminence Virtual School row had 464.

The program-name classification in that chart matches reported names containing virtual, digital, online, MOCA, connections or cyber. It is a method for finding named records, not a complete census of delivery modes. A name without those terms would be missed, and a district without a match cannot be certified as having no virtual instruction.

What the named program rows report

For preliminary 2025-26, the three hosts’ named program rows add to 10,105 students. Laquey’s Missouri Digital Academy row reported 1,377 in 2024-25 and 2,805 in preliminary 2025-26. Sturgeon’s MOCA-S row reported 2,658 at the final endpoint. These are separately published K12 counts, not a reconstructed share of an incomplete statewide virtual-sector total.

Other named records in the preliminary 2025-26 file include Springfield’s MOCAP Attendance Center at 1,194, Louisiana’s^↗ MOCA at 463, Atlanta’s^↗ Virtual Prep Academy of Missouri at 180 and Lee’s Summit’s^↗ R-7 Online Academy at 83. These examples describe their published rows, not an exhaustive sector inventory.

Some historical school rows under the three hosts have suppressed K12 totals. We have withdrawn the earlier description of the remaining counts as a complete in-person or physical-classroom population. Known school-row totals may numerically agree with a district total, but that agreement does not turn an unknown cell into zero or establish where students received instruction.

The policy perspective and the data limit

State Rep. Doug Richey described his concern about the former enrollment process: "There were families that wanted to enroll their children in a virtual platform full-time, and there were countless instances where (administrators) in those districts were intentionally holding up those application requests."

That is an attributed policy argument. The annual files do not test administrators’ motives, calculate funding lost by other districts, or identify how much growth represented new public-school participation. Nor can we calculate an exact compatible statewide decline or these districts’ statewide shares from suppressed totals.

The supported finding is narrower and still substantial: the three reported district counts grew sharply after the host-enrollment reporting transition, and their named program records account for large published counts. The data do not isolate a law’s causal effect, a program’s opening date or a physical attendance census.

Enrollment figures come from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s district and building enrollment files. Counts for 2025-26 are preliminary. Exact compatible statewide totals and shares remain unavailable under suppression.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.