Is Opius allowed? Is it safe?

We have designed Opius to comply with FCPS and LCPS rules, which we have reviewed carefully with our lawyers and security experts. The districts' rules prohibit parents and students from giving passwords to other people (FCPS Regulation 6410.18, Section VIII.E; FCPS SR&R 2026-27, Appendix A, Section 4.2; LCPS Regulation 3065-REG, Section G.2). Opius is not another person under the rules, and the rules do not prevent you, the parent, from using technology tools to assist with your student's education. Opius is a tool you run on your own account. Virginia and federal law give you the right to see the entirety of your minor child's school records (Va. Code Section 22.1-287(A); 34 C.F.R. Section 99.10).

Yes, and in Fairfax you signed it too. It bars giving an account to “any other user,” meaning people with no right to be in the school's systems. A parent is not one of them: FCPS's own StudentVUE policy says your child's information is visible to “your parent(s)/guardian.” Even so, start with your own parent login and add a student login only if you need it.

No. Opius is not connected to the districts' systems, has no database of students, and is not crawling school networks. Opius sees a child's information only through the login that child's own parent provided, and only for that family. If you turn on alerts, it checks the same pages with the same login on a schedule, for you.

Yours. In Fairfax your ParentVUE login also opens Schoology; in Loudoun it opens Schoology through the single sign-on link. Families can add a student login for StudentVUE or Schoology. That login is your child's school network password, and Opius uses it only for those two sites, never for anything else.

Only what is needed to answer your question: homework, grades and missing work, attendance, the class schedule and teacher contact information, as you would see it on the same screen. It never touches another system that requires a separate login.

No. It only reads. It cannot submit work, message teachers or change settings.

Anything that says something about your child — grades, assignments, attendance, the pages Opius read — is kept for less than a day and then expires on its own. A few general things are kept longer so look-ups are quick: which of your child's classes post their homework where (class names only, about a month), the text of a teacher's posted handout (a week), a transcript view for graduation questions (a week), and a long answer sent to you by text link (two days). If you turn on the daily check, Opius keeps the previous check's grades and attendance for about a week so it can tell you what changed.

Everything Opius keeps, for a day or longer, lives in encrypted storage with providers that publish SOC 2 Type II reports, reachable only by Opius's own servers.

• Your school logins are stored in an encrypted database and only decrypted at the moment of login — never visible to anyone, including us.
• Your own chat and text history stays for as long as you keep your account.
• We do not store or even see your credit card number. Only our payment processor, Stripe, holds that.

With AES-256-GCM encryption and keys stored as encrypted secrets with our hosting providers, separate from the database that holds your logins. AES-256 is the encryption standard the U.S. government specifies (NIST FIPS 197), the protection COPPA and school district vendor agreements expect, and what SOC 2 auditors and NIST SP 800-171 look for. We have not yet been through a SOC 2 audit; that is on our roadmap.

You, and anyone you add to your family account. Opius staff cannot see your logins and do not read your child's information or your chats except for support you request or in connection with a security incident or a legal requirement. Our service providers process only the information you submit to the service. Neither yours nor your child's information is ever sold, shared with advertisers or used to train AI models.

COPPA is the federal law on collecting information online from children under 13 (16 C.F.R. Part 312). Opius is built to the COPPA standard:

• Only a parent can create an account; a student uses Opius only under your account, with your consent.
• You give verifiable consent at signup, when you accept the Terms and Privacy Policy and pay (Section 312.5(b)(2)).
• Our Privacy Policy is the required notice and contains our retention policy (Sections 312.4 and 312.10).
• You can review, delete or stop collection of your child's information at any time (Section 312.6).
• We adopted a written children's information security program and an incident response plan, with a named coordinator (Section 312.8).

FERPA governs schools and school districts, not unaffiliated platforms such as Opius (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g). You have the right to see your child's education records, and Opius uses that right on your behalf, with your login and your permission. The districts currently share nothing with Opius. Today, only a parent can open an Opius account and we work only with families, but our goal is eventually to partner directly with the districts. While we work towards that, we are already adopting FERPA's principles (we are “FERPA aligned” today) so that we will already be in compliance when we contract directly with a school district.

No. Those rules cover use of AI in performing schoolwork and during school functions (LCPS Policy 5430; Regulation 5430.2-REG). Opius is a parent's tool at home to coordinate and keep track of performance, not to perform schoolwork itself.

Our team includes legal, cybersecurity, and data-security experts who have scrutinized every step of the way, making sure we're not just compliant, but that we put our students' security first. We've closely reviewed Fairfax County's and Loudoun County's rules and regulations around AI and using technology in conjunction with district-approved platforms — that has been our first priority.

That is the district's security feature. It is multi-factor authentication for logging into ParentVUE and is the same code you would get signing in from a new phone or computer. The district texts it to the phone number the school has on file for you, and you pass it to Opius.

Go to Family Account to add or remove a login or a student — that takes effect immediately. To cancel, open Manage Subscription in Family Account; canceling takes effect at the end of your current billing cycle.

No. Opius works by text message and at opiusedu.com.