What did Utah lawmakers accomplish on education this session?

• In education policy, Utah’s legislature focused on literacy, technology in schools, education choices, and more.
• During the interim, we encourage lawmakers to study open enrollment, pause changes to the Utah Fits All Scholarship, find ways to embrace technology in schools while safeguarding children, and protect religious liberty.

The 45-day lawmaking sprint finished last Friday, March 8. In this piece, I offer a wrap-up of the 2026 legislative session in education policy, so that interested Utahns and parents can review how it went.

Here are some key takeaways from Sutherland’s perspective in the education space, along with forward-looking recommendations for what the state should do in the interim and in preparation for the 2027 session.

Literacy

The big literacy bill, S.B. 241 Early Literacy, passed. The success of this bill was to be expected, considering how much airtime and support from state leaders the issue had even before the session.

It will be interesting to see the downstream effects of the bill’s student individualized reading plans, especially the controversial third-grade reading retention policy. This will certainly be a policy to watch and study for years to come. This area will require serious attention to implementation to be effective. Hopefully, with broad support at the government and education levels, sound implementation will happen, and the legislation will yield significant, much-needed improvements for students.

Open enrollment and student transfers

Lawmakers also debated education choice within the public school system this session. One bill that Sutherland Institute strongly supported (and helped present in committee) was H.B. 528 Local School Board Reporting, which passed both House and Senate committees unanimously but simply ran out of time on the final night.

The legislation would have required districts to report their open enrollment data to the Utah State Board of Education (USBE) and then required the board to publish the data in a state report. Transparency is a growing issue in this new era of education choice. Since there appears to be widespread support from legislators, and time was the only factor against it becoming law, we hope to see the policy cross the finish line next year.

There was a lot of discussion about student eligibility to play sports when a student transfers schools, but two bills dealing with that (H.B. 360 and S.B. 271) ultimately died.

As more families shop around, considering their public options during open enrollment, these issues will become increasingly important to families and their representatives. We encourage lawmakers to audit, study, and bolster public choice through open enrollment in the state.

Utah Fits All Scholarship program changes

The Utah Fits Scholarship program will see some important changes thanks to the lawmaker who sponsored the original bill that created the program in 2023.

This year’s legislation, H.B. 467 Utah Fits All Scholarship Program Modifications, took several forms throughout the session and ultimately landed with language that Sutherland Institute supported.

It addresses potential misuse of funds under the private school definition while serving scholarship families by increasing program manager call center capacity, ensuring scholarship recipients have access to the same LEA extracurricular activities as homeschool and private school students, and more.

I wrote about proposed changes to the Utah Fits All Scholarship program a couple of times (here and here). Basically, the different versions of the bill reveal the tension between how much innovation will be allowed in this program versus accountability through new definitions, standards, or accreditation. We anticipate more of this discussion to come, and we’ll push for choice and future innovation to remain at the heart of any further modifications. Ideally, the Utah Supreme Court will rule on the program, and that state will perform an audit, before additional reforms are made.

Technology

While the state is generally pro-technology, the legislature passed several bills to thoughtfully limit technology use in schools and educate parents and students about it.

The much-awaited school bell-to-bell cell phone ban passed. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out in schools and whether other states follow this trend.

Sutherland supported a couple of bills that passed in this space, too. H.B. 218 Digital Skills Amendments was one of them. It was designed to give students more up-to-date digital skills to tackle issues they face right now. It requires the Utah State Board of Education to establish standards for a digital skills course that an LEA offers in grades 7 and 8. The course is intended to teach “digital skills concepts” relevant to the issues students face, such as social media, artificial intelligence, and safe online practices. It allows for the creation of an advisory tech council to provide guidance to the board on these issues. An earlier version sought to change high school graduation requirements, but the final version does not.

Another education technology bill that Sutherland supported was S.B. 88 School Technology Amendments. This is a common-sense addition to the technology in education debate that improves transparency for parents regarding how their children are using devices at school. Importantly, this new law gives parents access to see which websites their child is visiting and how long they are on the device. And, at the request of the parents, it requires that a pre-approved content filtering system be used for their child’s school device.

A pair of high-profile education technology bills that passed were announced together prior to the session by their nicknames, the Balance Act and the SAFE Act.

H.B. 273 Classroom Technology Amendments (the Balance Act) is intended to prompt a discussion among LEAs about the “balanced use” of technology in the classroom by requiring adoption of a policy on related issues. In addition to requiring the USBE to incorporate technology standards into core standards, it requires the USBE to create a model policy on the “balanced use of technology in the classroom” and the “use of artificial intelligence,” which LEAs can then use to craft their local policies.

S.B. 267, Software In Education Amendments (the SAFE Act) passed in a form that only requires the USBE to conduct a study on the use of software and digital services and to share its findings, rather than creating requirements for their use as it did in its original version.

While a lot happened in this space, other bills did not pass. For instance, a bill that would have leaned into AI, creating an AI sandbox for students, did not make it across the finish line.

With AI being an ever-evolving topic, the issue of technology, AI, and education will no doubt come up frequently in the future. During this session, lawmakers seemed a bit more poised to put boundaries on technology in school than to lean into adoption or deployment. As schools implement the reforms from these bills, gain on-the-ground experience, and perhaps even run into hurdles, we might see some of this being refined. We encourage lawmakers to continue to find ways to leverage the benefits of technology and AI while safeguarding children.

Religious freedom

Some bills strengthened instruction about religion throughout history and protected freedom of religion in schools.

For example, Sutherland Institute supported H.C.R. 4 Concurrent Resolution Regarding Religious Freedom, which, as a concurrent resolution, serves merely as an expression of support for, or legislative intent to bolster, certain ideas. In this case, it encourages the inclusion of religion in government and education. Specific to education, it supports “the right of public school students and teachers to openly express their faith.”

Sutherland also supported S.B. 268 Religious Curriculum in Schools, which requires standards for a social studies class to examine the “primacy of religious liberty” in American constitutional governance and the “fundamental role of religion in the history” of the nation. It says that students may express religious beliefs in schoolwork and not be penalized or rewarded based on religious perspectives.

In the higher education space, Sutherland supported H.B. 204 Higher Education Student Belief Accommodation, which expanded the scope of what’s considered a required reasonable accommodation based on religious belief. Ultimately, some students may opt out of certain activities if they conflict with their religious beliefs, and an instructor may not compel speech from a student. Lawmakers’ awareness of religion’s role in society and in an individual’s life is a positive step that will require consistent attention.

Conclusion

Education is always one of the most legislated areas, and, frankly, it’s because it matters. We hope lawmakers continue their commendable work through the interim.