K-12 Education

Gov. Cox vetoed the idea last year. Republican lawmakers insist that they need the budget flexibility that moving the money to a state fund, instead of to school districts, would provide.

Utah tried to infuse data science into its math standards. That effort got caught up in a broader debate about rigor and what math high schoolers need.

“Our parents used to worry about our futures, but now it's the opposite. We worry about their futures,” East High School senior Leslie Hernandez said.

Solo la mitad de los estudiantes de tercer grado en Utah están leyendo al nivel de su grado. El gobernador Spencer Cox cree que tener una ley para hacer que los estudiantes con dificultades en lectura repitan el grado ayudaría a aumentar ese número.

“We need to hold Davis County School District accountable for this severe institutional betrayal of our daughters,” one of the parents in the lawsuit told KUER.

Last year, Utah lawmakers banned cellphones during class time. But Gov. Spencer Cox thinks phones also need to be off-limits in between classes. That’s called a bell-to-bell ban.

Only half of Utah third-graders are reading at grade level. Gov. Spencer Cox thinks having a law to hold students struggling with reading back a grade would help boost that number.

Award-winning authors and two Utah high school students say the law that has banned 22 books in all Utah public schools violates their First Amendment rights.

Twenty-two books are now banned in Utah K-12 schools. In addition to “Wicked,” the popular young adult novel “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “Nineteen Minutes” were also added to the ban list.

Mientras algunas escuelas reportaron aumentos porcentuales grandes en la cantidad de estudiantes principiantes de inglés este año, ninguna cumplió con el umbral de 30 estudiantes establecido por el proyecto de ley HB42.

While some schools reported large percentage increases in the number of beginner English learners this year, none met the 30-student threshold established by HB42.

Gov. Spencer Cox said this year's budget was tight, but he carved out $25 million in one-time money plus an ongoing $20 million for Utah’s new approach to homelessness that aligns with a Trump executive order.