Chicago Public Schools and education software giant PowerSchool have agreed to a proposed $17.25 million settlement in a high-profile class-action lawsuit that accused the Naviance college and career platform of quietly harvesting and sharing students’ private data without consent. The motion for preliminary approval landed in federal court this week and would create a payout fund for millions of current and former CPS students. The case, filed in August 2023 by a student identified only as Q.J., has become a test of how school districts police their third-party ed-tech vendors.
Settlement Numbers And What Happens Next
The deal on the table totals $17.25 million and still needs sign-off from a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. According to Bloomberg Law, the plaintiffs are asking the court to greenlight notice to the class and to split the net settlement fund on a pro rata basis once fees and costs are carved out, if preliminary approval is granted.
New Rules For Naviance And Its Vendors
Under the settlement motion, PowerSchool would spin up a “web governance” committee to keep tabs on advertising technology used in Naviance and agree not to plug in any third-party software or code for a two-year stretch. The company would also be required to tell its vendors to delete data tied to class members and beef up its privacy disclosures. On the district side, Chicago Public Schools would require vendors to file annual certifications that they are following state and federal student privacy laws, according to The Record.
Why This Matters After The PowerSchool Breach
The proposed settlement arrives in the shadow of a December 2024 PowerSchool security incident that triggered a wave of warning letters to school districts and a fresh swarm of lawsuits. Security reporting has said the threat actor claimed to have stolen data connected to roughly 62.4 million students and about 9.5 million teachers, figures cited in coverage by TechCrunch. For families already rattled by that breach, the CPS case has doubled as a referendum on how much data ed-tech firms really need and what happens when things go sideways.
Who Is In The Class And How Payouts Would Work
The settlement motion defines the class as anyone who logged into Naviance between August 2021 and January 2026, a group that could include more than 10 million people nationwide. As outlined by Bloomberg Law, the filing asks the judge to approve a notice program and to allow pro rata cash distributions from the fund if the court grants preliminary approval.
Legal Notes
The settlement motion says the agreement would wrap up the Illinois litigation, while the defendants continue to deny any liability under the proposed terms. PowerSchool has said it “jointly reached an agreement with the plaintiffs” without admitting wrongdoing, according to The Record. The filing also notes that Heap Inc., which was once listed as a co-defendant, has been dropped from the Illinois case and is now being pursued in separate litigation in New York.
