Letter to the Editor: Did You Use Naviance? You Could Be Entitled to Money

To the Editor:

The good news: if you are a student who logged into Naviance – a widely used college planning service – at least once between August 18, 2021, and January 23, 2026, you can probably get some money.

The bad news: you can get this money because Naviance’s parent company settled a lawsuit regarding violations of student privacy.

The decision, filed on February 23, 2026, regards a lawsuit against PowerSchool Holdings, Hobsons, Heap Analytics, and Chicago Public Schools (CPS). CPS is named as a defendant because the lead plaintiff of the lawsuit attended CPS when they used Naviance.

The specific claim behind the settlement centered around technology embedded in Naviance that accessed and stored sensitive information about students without the knowledge or consent of the students. The specific claims of the lawsuit are included in the “FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND” section of the decision, starting at the bottom of page 2 and continuing onto page 3.

The settlement establishes a $17.25 million fund to pay people in the affected class. 

As defined in the settlement, people who can claim part of the settlement money include:

“All persons in the United States who, while a student, logged into the product offered by Hobsons and, later, PowerSchool Holdings, that is commonly referred to as Naviance (the “Naviance Platform”), at least once during the period beginning on August 18, 2021 and continuing through January 23, 2026 (the “Class Period”).”

In laypersons terms, if you were a high school student who logged in to Naviance at least once between August 18, 2021, and January 23, 2026, you can apply to receive a portion of this settlement.

According to the Regional School District 18 web site, Naviance is part of their approved technology platforms, with a contract executed in 2017. Anecdotally, I have heard that Naviance was used well after August 2021, and the Naviance portal for Regional School District 18 is still available online. 

Unfortunately, it looks like the list of contracts held by the district has not been updated consistently. At present, many listings have no contract or contract date. The majority of listed contracts have an end date of 2018, with one service (Wixie) showing a contract ending in March of 2019. This lack of transparency probably does not live up the intent, and possibly the letter, of Connecticut State student privacy law. 

If you have used Naviance at any point between August 2021 and January 2026, you should be able to sign onto this class action. To the school board and the district administration – it would be great to hear about your communication plans and strategy to ensure impacted families can sign on to this lawsuit, given that students appear to have been strongly encouraged to use Naviance while enrolled in high school in the district. It would also be good to learn when the list of district contracts with school vendors will be updated to include contracts signed between 2018 and the present.

Sincerely,
William Fitzgerald
Old Lyme