Terms of Use
Last Updated: April 10, 2024
Welcome to Stridelearning.com! To use our website, courses and services, you will use our intellectual property and technology for your benefit. Because of that, we have rights on what you may do with our property and may limit your use of the website, courses and services. We will have responsibilities to you and you will have responsibilities to us. Together, these rights and responsibilities are called “Terms of Use” (or “Terms”). By using our Services (defined below), you agree to these Terms. That is why it is important that you carefully read this whole page before you use Stride’s Services.
By using the Services, you represent and warrant that you are of legal age to enter into these Terms or, if you are not, that you have obtained the consent of your parent or legal guardian.
Certain features of the Services may be subject to more terms, which will be posted in connection with such features. Those added terms are part of these Terms and are legally binding just as if they were written on this page.
These Terms require the use of arbitration on an individual basis to resolve disputes, AND DO NOT PERMIT jury trials or class actions. These Terms also limit your remedies in the event of a dispute.
What definitions apply to these Terms?
“FERPA” means the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) (“FERPA”) and similar laws that control the disclosure of student information.
“Stride” (or “we”) means Stride, Inc. and its subsidiaries and Affiliates. An “Affiliate” of Stride, Inc. is an entity that controls Stride, Inc., is controlled by Stride, Inc., or is under common control with Stride, Inc. “Control” means the direct or indirect possession of the power to direct or cause the direction of the management policies of an entity.
“Sensitive Information” means (1) personally identifiable information as defined in FERPA; (2) educational records, as defined in FERPA; (3) pupil records as defined in the California Education Code section 49073.1 and similar laws; and (4) covered information as defined in Student Data Privacy Laws.
“Services” means Stride’s Sites, software, products, mobile applications, AI-Enabled Services, and services.
“Sites” means Stride’s websites, which include www.stridelearning.com www.k12.com, www.stridels.com, www.k12courses.com, www.k12privateacademy.com, www.gwuohs.com, www.keystoneschoolonline.com, www.biguniverse.com, www.learningliftoff.com and other websites.
“Student Data Privacy Laws” means laws that specifically protect the use and disclosure of electronic students records and information coming from those records.
“User Content” means all information and content (including Prompts and Creations (each as defined below), and any other text, photos, images, sound, video or other materials) that a user submits to the Services or generates through use of the Services.
What Services Does Stride provide?
Stride provides courses, lessons, evaluations, communication tools, tracking tools, directories, creative tools, event offerings and opportunities to communicate with others using the Services. The Services includes communications from Stride such as service announcements, administrative messages, and other messages. We may change, add or delete features of the Services from time to time. These Terms apply to all changes and additions.
The Services may include certain services, products, tools and features that are enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies (“AI-Enabled Services”) and that allow you to submit text, images, multimedia, or other inputs or make certain selections (“Prompts”) to generate content (“Creations”). Due to the nature of AI, Creations may not be accurate, reliable, appropriate, or unique across users and the AI-Enabled Services may generate the same or similar Creations for Stride or other users. You understand that Creations may be subject to certain third-party rights and restrictions. Stride will not be responsible for any action that you take or do not take based on the AI-Enabled Services, including any Creations.
Our AI-Enabled Services are powered by foundational models trained on various data sources. You can access more information by visiting the webpages for the AI-Enabled Service(s) you are using, which are accessible on the applicable Stride’s website.
What Requirements and Responsibilities Apply to Creating an Account?
Signing Up. To use some of the Services, you must register for an account (“Account”) and provide information about yourself and/or your child. You must always provide true, complete and updated information for the Account. You also must be of legal age (usually 18 years old or older) to create the account. You may turn off your Account at any time by following the instructions on the Site. If you are adding a student to an Account, you are certifying that you are the parent or legal guardian of the child listed on the Account. As the parent or legal guardian, it is your responsibility to decide whether the Services are appropriate for your child.
Account Responsibilities. Keep your password private. You are responsible for the activity that happens on or through your Account. Do not use your Account password on other sites or applications. You must immediately tell Stride of any unauthorized use, or suspected unauthorized use of your Account or any other failure of security.
What Requirements and Restrictions Apply to Your Use of the Services?
How You Use the Services. Subject to your compliance with these Terms, Stride grants to you a non-transferable, non-sublicensable, limited license to use and access the Services only for your own personal, non-commercial use. We can take back that license at any time. You do not have the rights to:
- Change or use our content for other purposes;
- communicate or publish it to a third party, including the public, people you know, or other businesses and entities;
- record, photograph or stream it;
- post it on a website or social media platform;
- sell it; or
- otherwise violate our intellectual property rights, including using it to develop another product or service.
Ownership. As between you and Stride and except for User Content, all content in the Services, including text, graphics, data, photographic images, moving images, sound, drawings, and software (“Services Content”) is either owned by Stride or licensed by Stride from third parties. All Services Content is protected by copyright, trademark, patent and other laws relating to the protection of intellectual property.
Access. You are responsible for getting access to the Service. You must provide and are responsible for all equipment necessary to access the Service. However, you are not responsible for all fees connected with access or for providing all equipment if you are enrolled in a public school for which Stride provides services and that school has given you the equipment and/or partial or full reimbursement of access fees.
What Are My Responsibilities as a Parent or Legal Guardian?
As the parent or legal guardian of the student, you are responsible for the student’s education and access to the Internet. You agree to properly log the student’s true attendance, participate in parent/student meetings, and keep in good condition equipment and other materials given by Stride or the student’s school. You understand that computers or hardware made available to students may contain filtering software to restrict access to objectionable Internet sites. However, Stride is not responsible for the effectiveness of that software. Students may be given a webcam either separately or as part of a computer. Webcams may be activated by the student’s school or by Stride on occasion for purposes of proctored testing, selected courses and/or providing special programs’ services. People in physical possession of the computer can also activate the webcam. Webcams cannot be activated when the computer is turned off. Parents are responsible for their student’s use of the webcam. If Stride has given you or the student with a computer or other hardware, you will quickly return it to Stride when you are requested to do so. If you do not do so, Stride may disable some or all use of the computer or hardware.
What Requirements Apply to Users Under the Age of 13?
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) requires that Stride get parental permission before knowingly collecting Sensitive Information from children under 13 years old. Stride does not knowingly collect or ask for any Sensitive Information from children under 13 except directly from a child’s parent or guardian or through the child’s use of the Services as a student in a school using the Stride Services. If we learn that we have collected Sensitive Information from a person under 13 that does not comply with COPPA, we will delete that information. If you believe that a child under the age of 13 has given Sensitive Information to us without complying with COPPA, please contact us at privacy@K12.com.
What are Stride’s Rights about Service Modifications and Support?
Modification. At any time, we may change, suspend, add to or discontinue some or all of the Services with or without telling you. Stride is not liable for any changes, suspension, added or discontinuation of any of the Services.
No Support or Maintenance. Stride has no duty to provide any support or maintenance about the Services. This limitation does not apply to any support or maintenance that the school in which your student has enrolled has specifically contracted with Stride to provide.
What Requirements Apply to User Content?
User Content. You are responsible for your User Content (for clarity, including Prompts and Creations). By submitting or generating User Content using the Services, you represent and warrant that you have obtained all rights, permissions, and consents necessary to use such User Content. If you post something that concerns us, we may contact the authorities – such as the Police or Social Services. You will not post any User Content that violates your school’s policies, guidelines, or procedures.
Conduct. You may not represent or suggest that your User Content is given, sponsored or endorsed by Stride. We do not have a duty to backup any User Content unless we must do so by law. Therefore, your User Content may be deleted at any time without prior notice.
We May use Your Feedback. We welcome your feedback, ideas or suggestions (“Feedback”) about our Services! We may use your Feedback without any restriction or duty to you, even after you stop using the Services, unless the Feedback is protected by FERPA or any Student Data Privacy Laws.
How we Use User Content. Your User Content stays yours. These Terms do not give us any rights to your User Content, except as explicitly stated.
When you provide your User Content to us or generate User Content through the Services (including, for clarity, the AI-Enabled Services), you grant to us (and those we work with) a perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, sublicensable (through multiple tiers), royalty-free, and worldwide license to reproduce, transmit, distribute, display and perform (publicly or otherwise), prepare derivative works based on, and otherwise use and exploit that User Content for any purpose (including to operate, promote, protect and improve our Services, and to develop new ones), and in any form or media (now known or later developed). For the avoidance of doubt, this license allows us to use your User Content to develop, improve, and train the AI-Enabled Services.
We may provide User Content to other entities; however, we will require those entities to use the User Content obeying the same restrictions that we must follow. The license you grant above continues even if you stop using our Services. However, we will exercise our license to your User Content only to the extent consistent with FERPA and Student Data Privacy Laws.
Enforcement. We may, but do not have to, review User Content, and investigate and/or act against you in our sole determination if you violate the Acceptable Use Policy below or your school’s student code of conduct or any other provision of these Terms or otherwise create liability for us or any person. Such action may include removing or changing your User Content, ending your Account, reporting you to your school for violations of the school’s code of conduct and/or reporting you to police or other authorities.
What is Stride’s Acceptable Use Policy?
We expect you to behave responsibly. Here are some examples of prohibited behavior:
- Abusing and Disrupting the Services
- Don’t probe, scan or test the weaknesses of any system or network.
- Don’t breach or otherwise bypass any security or authentication measures.
- Don’t access, tamper with or use nonpublic areas of the Services, or areas of the Services to which you have not been invited.
- Don’t interfere with or disrupt any user, host or network, for example by distributing harmful programs or apps or overloading, flooding or mail‑bombing any part of the Services.
- Don’t take apart, decompile or reverse engineer any part of the Services.
- Don’t access, search or create accounts for the Services by any means other than our publicly supported interfaces (for example, do not scrape, spider or crawl).
- Don’t take any action that creates an unreasonable (as determined by us) load on systems or the systems of our providers.
- Don’t provide your password to any other person, use any other person’s username and password, or otherwise manage the Services through shared credentials.
- Don’t upload, transmit, or distribute to or through the Services any computer viruses, worms, or any software meant to damage or change a computer system or data.
- Use the content in the Services to develop software, including but not limited to, using content to train any large language models, machine learning, generative AI or any other AI enabled technologies.
- Spamming and Phishing
- Don’t send spam or other unsolicited communications, promotions or advertisements.
- Don’t send altered, deceptive or false source-identifying information, including phishing or spoofing.
- Lying to and Pretending to be Others
- Don’t do or post anything that's fake or misleading (including, for clarity, by claiming that Creations are human generated when they are not).
- Don’t pretend to be another person, company or entity.
- Stealing
- Don’t sell the Services unless specifically approved in writing by Stride to do so or publish or use the Services on any network or system other than those we provide to you or to your school.
- Infringing, Misappropriating and Violating Rights
- Don’t infringe or misappropriate anyone’s copyright, trademark, trade secret, patent or other intellectual property rights.
- Don’t violate anyone’s privacy or publicity rights.
- Don’t harvest, collect, gather or put together information or data related to other users, including e-mail addresses, without their permission.
- Harming Others
- Don’t do or post anything threatening, harassing, abusive, excessively violent, offensive, harmful, defamatory, sexually explicit, pornographic, or obscene.
- Don’t promote bigotry, violence, property damage or hatred against any person or group based on their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual preference, age, disability or any other category that is protected by law.
- Don’t bully anyone.
- Breaking the Law
- Don’t use the Services in violation of any US export controls, rules or sanctions.
- Don’t do anything that otherwise violates the law, including all local laws about online conduct and acceptable content.
- Don’t provide material support or resources to any organization named by the United States government as a foreign terrorist organization.
- Do not use the Services if you are (1) located in, under the control of, or a national or resident of any country to which the U.S. has embargoed goods or (2) a person on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Commerce Department’s Table of Deny Orders.
What Restrictions Apply to my Use of AI-Enabled Services?
If you use our AI-Enabled Services, you acknowledge and agree that you will not:
- Submit any personal information to the AI-Enabled Services (including, for clarity, as part of a Prompt);
- Use the AI-Enabled Services or any Creations in any manner that infringes upon or otherwise violates any applicable third-party rights or contractual restrictions;
- Reverse engineer any aspect of the AI-Enabled Services or the Creations, or do anything that might discover or reveal source code, or bypass or circumvent measures employed to prevent or limit access to any part of our AI-Enabled Services;
- Use any data mining, robots, or similar data gathering or extraction methods designed to scrape or extract data from our AI-Enabled Services or from Creations;
- Use the AI-Enabled Services or Creations to indirectly or directly develop or improve a product or service that is similar to or may compete with the AI-Enabled Services;
- Sell or resell any aspect of the AI-Enabled Services or any Creations, or otherwise use the AI-Enabled Services or Creations, for any commercial purpose; or
- Use the AI-Enabled Services or Creations in violation of the Acceptable Use Policy.
What Privacy Rights Apply to the Services?
Please review our Privacy Policy for a description of Stride’s privacy practices and obligations.
What Should I Do If I Have a Disability and am Concerned About the Accessibility of the Services?
Stride is committed to making sure that the Services remain accessible to all people, regardless of disability. Further information about accessibility of the Services can be found in the Web Accessibility Resolution Procedure. Parents and legal guardians of students in schools should contact their school about possible accommodations and related services.
What Are My Indemnification Obligations to Stride?
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, you will indemnify, defend (at Stride’s option), and hold harmless Stride and its subsidiaries and affiliates, and its and their respective officers, directors, agents, partners, and employees (individually and collectively, the “Stride Parties”) from and against any losses, liabilities, claims, demands, damages, expenses, or costs (including legal fees) (“Indemnification Claims”) arising out of or related to: (a) your breach of these Terms; (b) your User Content (including, for the avoidance of doubt, your creation or use of any Creations); (c) your violation (or alleged violation) of applicable law or the rights of any third party; or (e) your use of the Services.
How is Stride’s Potential Liability to Me Limited?
DISCLAIMERS. Your use of our Services and any content or materials provided therein or therewith (including any User Content and any third-party content or materials) is at your sole risk. Except as otherwise provided in a writing by Stride and to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, the Services are provided to you “as is” and “as available” without warranties, either express or implied. Stride disclaims any warranties to you of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, or non-infringement. Stride and the Stride Parties do not represent or warrant to you that the Services (including, for clarity, the Creations) are or will be: (a) timely, reliable, current, uninterrupted, secure or error-free; (b) meet your requirements or expectations; or (c) free from viruses or other harmful components or content or materials.
LIMITATION ON LIABILITY. To the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, (a) the Stride Parties will not be liable to you under any theory of liability – whether based in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, warranty, or otherwise – for any indirect, special, incidental, exemplary, punitive or consequential damages including any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill or other intangible losses and any damages related to your access to, use of or inability to access or use the Services or any part of the Services and any damages related to loss or corruption of any content or data, including User Content; and (b) the total liability of the Stride Parties for any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms, regardless of the form of the action, is limited to fifty U.S. Dollars ($50). The limitations set forth in this section will not limit or exclude liability for the gross negligence, fraud, or intentional misconduct of Stride or of the Stride Parties or for any other matters in which liability cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.
What Happens When My Account is Terminated?
These Terms are in full force and effect while you use the Services. We may suspend or end your rights to use the Services (including your Account) at any time for any reason at our sole discretion. If that happens, your Account and right to access and use the Services will end immediately. Stride is not responsible to you for any ending of your rights under these Terms.
What Should I Do If I Have Concerns About Copyrights or Intellectual Property?
Stride respects the intellectual property of others and asks that users of our Services do the same. If you believe that one of our users is using the Services to illegally violate the copyright(s) in a work, please review Stride’s Intellectual Property Policy.
What Rights and Obligations Apply Related to Linking to Third Party Sites?
Sometimes the Services link to other third-party services, applications and websites (collectively, “Third-Party Services”). The Third-Party Services may have their own terms and policies, and your use of them will be ruled by those terms and policies. We don’t control Third Party Services, and we’re not liable for Third-Party Services. Except for Third-Party Services that are included in courses, Stride provides access to them only as a convenience to you and does not review or make any representations with respect to Third-Party Services.
What Rights and Obligations Apply to Interactions with Other Users?
Each person using the Services is responsible for all his or her own User Content. We are not responsible for any User Content, whether given by you or by others. We make no promises about the accuracy, suitability, or quality of any User Content or other users’ Creations. Your interactions with other Service users are only between you and such users. Stride is not responsible for any loss or damage caused as the result of any such interactions. If there is a dispute between you and any Service user, we are under no duty to become involved. If the dispute is between you and a Service user and the dispute is made through or arises from a school, contact the school in which you or the other Service user has a student enrolled.
What Laws Apply and How Are Disputes Resolved?
Governing Law and Location for Solving Disputes. All dispute related to these Terms or to the use of the Services are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, except for its conflicts of law terms. The exclusive location for any claim or action related to these Terms or the use of the Services is the federal or state courts having jurisdiction in Fairfax County, Virginia. You agree to personal jurisdiction in those courts. You agree that that location is not inconvenient.
Informal Resolution. Before filing a claim against Stride, you agree to try to resolve the dispute by first emailing legal@K12.com with a description of your claim. We’ll try to resolve the dispute informally by following up via email, phone or other methods. If we can’t resolve the dispute within thirty (30) days of our receipt of your first email, you or Stride may then bring a formal proceeding as described below.
Binding Arbitration. Please read this Arbitration Agreement carefully. It is part of your contract with Stride and affects your rights. Any dispute or claim relating in any way to these Terms (including to the validity and enforceability of the Terms) or the Services will be solved by binding and confidential arbitration, rather than in court. The Federal Arbitration Act and federal arbitration law apply to these Terms. There is no judge or jury in arbitration, and court review of an arbitration award is limited. However, an arbitrator can award on an individual basis the same damages and relief as a court (including injunctive and declaratory relief or statutory damages) and must follow the Terms as a court would. The arbitration will be conducted in English by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its rules, including the AAA’s Supplementary Procedures for Consumer-Related Disputes. The AAA’s rules are available at www.adr.org or by calling 1-800-778-7879. Payment of all filing, administration and arbitrator fees will be governed by the AAA’s rules. You may choose to have the arbitration conducted by telephone, based on written submissions, or in person. The arbitration will be held before one arbitrator and that person will issue a written award and statement of decision describing the essential findings and conclusions on which the award is based, including the calculation of any damages awarded. We each agree that any dispute resolution proceedings will be conducted only on an individual basis and not in a class, consolidated or representative action. If for any reason a claim proceeds in court rather than in arbitration, we both give up any right to a jury trial. We also both agree that you or we may bring a suit in court to enjoin infringement or other misuse of intellectual property rights.
What Other Provisions Apply?
California Disclosure. Stride is located at 11720 Plaza America Drive, 9th Floor, Reston, VA 20190. If you are a California resident, you may report complaints to the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Product of the California Department of Consumer Affairs by contacting them in writing at 400 R Street, Sacramento, CA 95814, or by telephone at (800) 952-5210.
Electronic Communications. The communications between you and Stride are through electronic means, whether you use the Site or Services or send us emails, or whether Stride posts statements on the Services or communicates with you via emails. For contractual purposes, you (a) agree to receive communications from us in an electronic form; and (b) agree that all terms and conditions, agreements, notices, disclosures, and other communications that we provide to you electronically satisfy any legal requirement that such communications would satisfy if it were written in a hardcopy.
Entire Terms/Waivers/Third Parties. These Terms are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the use of the Services. Any exception of any of these Terms is only valid if it is in writing and signed by an executive of Stride. These Terms are between you and Stride. No other person or entity has any rights to enforce any of the Terms.
Severability. If any provision of these Terms is unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full effect and an enforceable term will be substituted reflecting our intent as closely as possible.
Assignment. You may not transfer any of your rights and obligations under these Terms, and any attempt to do so is void. We may transfer our rights under these Terms to any of our affiliates or subsidiaries, or to any successor in interest of any business connected with the Services.
Copyright/Trademark Information. Copyright © 2020 Stride, Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks, logos and service marks (“Marks”) displayed in the Services are our property or the property of other third parties under a license with us. You are not permitted to use these Marks without our prior written permission or the prior written permission of the third party that owns the Marks.
Modifications. We may change these Terms and will always post the most current version on our Site. Please check back on a regular basis. By continuing to use or access the Services after any changes come into effect, you agree to be bound by the changed terms. If you disagree with our changes, do not continue to use the Services.
