At the Wyckoff K-8 Board of Education's June 29 meeting, Mia Joudeh told the board her fifth-grade daughter had been asked to agree or disagree with opinion prompts inside an iReady lesson — including whether "18 year olds should be eligible to run for president" and whether she "would voice support for a law that lowers the driving age." She asked whether the district knew, how the responses were being stored, and whether her daughter's opinions were being collected without her consent.[1]

That same software is now at the center of a federal class action in Massachusetts. A group of students and their families sued Curriculum Associates, alleging it collects and shares student data without adequate consent.[2] We laid out the federal and New Jersey legal framework that governs student data generally in a companion piece; this piece tracks the one place that framework is actually being tested in court.

What the lawsuit says

The suit, M.C. v. Curriculum Associates, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in December 2025.[2] It doesn't rely on the usual student-privacy laws like FERPA or COPPA — those can only be enforced by the government, not by individual families. Instead, it argues the company violated federal wiretap law, state privacy law, and state consumer-protection law[2] by collecting and sharing student data — things like assessment results, behavioral data, and device and browser information — without valid consent.[6]

Curriculum Associates has called the claims "legally meritless," saying it does not sell student data, use it for advertising, or build commercial profiles on students.[3]

Where the case stands now

Curriculum Associates asked the court to throw out the case on February 27, 2026, arguing its practices comply with existing law "particularly ... FERPA" and calling the suit part of an "ideologically motivated crusade."[2] The plaintiffs opposed the motion in early April; the company's reply finished the briefing by the end of that month. As of July 15, the judge — F. Dennis Saylor IV, case No. 1:25-cv-13942-FDS — still hasn't ruled on whether the case can proceed.[2]

A fight over student records

The company also wants the court's permission to keep deleting old student records while the case proceeds, arguing its contracts and state deletion laws require the practice. It's offered to keep a log of what gets deleted instead. According to the company's court filing, the plaintiffs initially agreed to that approach, then changed course and demanded case-by-case approval over every deletion, leaving the two sides at a standstill.[2]

What the July 15 stay means

On July 14, Curriculum Associates asked the court to pause all evidence-gathering in the case until the dismissal motion is resolved. Checking the docket directly for this article, we found the judge granted that request the very next day, July 15.[2] It isn't a ruling on the merits — the dismissal motion itself is still undecided — but it does mean nothing else in the case, including the fight over deleted records, moves forward until that happens.

What this lawsuit isn't about

It's tempting to read this case as a referendum on the kind of question Joudeh raised — whether an opinion or attitudinal prompt belongs inside a reading lesson. It isn't, at least not directly. The complaint frames its own central question more broadly: whether Curriculum Associates gets legally effective consent before collecting, using, or sharing any student data at all, not just opinion responses.[6] Its factual allegations focus on assessment results, lesson-by-lesson behavioral data, and device and browser information the plaintiffs say the company sends to advertising and other third parties in real time — the complaint doesn't mention opinion or political-belief prompts, and its plaintiffs are unrelated California students. Whether the specific practice Joudeh described is lawful remains a separate, unresolved question this suit doesn't address. This article does not take a position on how either question should come out.

What Wyckoff families can do right now

Both the K-8[4] and Ramapo Indian Hills[5] boards of education maintain a formal public-complaints policy — the most direct channel a family has today, regardless of how or when the federal case is ultimately resolved. We'll update this piece as the docket moves.