Private company

Connections Academy

Logo: Representatives from Connections Academy, Non-free logo, via Wikipedia3

Virtual online school

Connections Academy is a for-profit corporate provider of online school products and services to virtual schools for grades K-12, including full-time online school. In the United States the company is noted as Connections Academy, and for students abroad it is known as International Connections Academy. Based in Columbia, Maryland, Connections Academy is part of Pearson's Online and Blended Learning K-12 group.2 It is part of Pearson Education.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

2001Founded1

Connections Academy is a for-profit corporate provider of online school products and services to virtual schools for grades K-12, including full-time online school. In the United States the company is noted as Connections Academy, and for students abroad it is known as International Connections Academy. Based in Columbia, Maryland, Connections Academy is part of Pearson's Online and Blended Learning K-12 group. Online schools are an alternative to traditional public schools. Similar to charter schools, they are subsidized by the state. Although they contract with many non-profit schools, they are a for-profit corporation.2

Corporate structure

Connections Academy is part of a group headed by Pearson plc. 54 entities, 14 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

In the spring of 2001, Sylvan Ventures started a separate business unit to create a virtual school program with its first virtual schools in Wisconsin and Colorado. The company first began providing online school services to two schools in the fall of 2002. In September 2004, Connections Academy was sold to an investor group led by Apollo Management, L.P. The company now operates public schools under management contracts from charter schools or school districts.

A new corporate entity called Connections Education was established in early 2011. In this same year, on September 15, 2011, Pearson, an international learning company, acquired Connections Education for more than $400 million.

Connections Education is currently Pearson's Online & Blended Learning division, which delivers the Connections Academy online public school program and other online learning services called Pearson Connexus to educational institutions and other organizations nationwide. A private online school called International Connections Academy serves students across the globe. In 2019 it was announced that UK-based Harrow school would deliver an online education option leveraging Pearson Connexus.

From Wikipedia’s article on Connections Academy, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

Subsidiaries

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 2001Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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