HB 399 Utah House · 2026 General Session

Prohibition Against Student Character Tracking and Grading Systems

HB 399 prohibits schools from measuring, grading, tracking, or collecting data on students' character traits or implementing character education programs. It repeals existing requirements for civics and character education in Utah schools and bans administrative staff from using character-based assessments. The bill directly affects public school students and educators by removing mandated character education practices and data collection. It also creates parental rights to receive reports and investigate character education issues, while amending multiple Utah education codes to reflect these changes.

Issues: ✗ Education

Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Jan 2026

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Jan 28, 2026 Last action Mar 7, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 2 comparisons

What changed between versions

Substitute #1 → Substitute #2 · 5 edits

MODERATE

The bill was amended to strengthen restrictions on character education by adding explicit prohibitions against standardizing or grading student character and extending these protections to homeschooled children. A new section was added to mandate instruction on Constitutional government, and the timeline for public entities to fix violations of character education rules was extended from 14 days to 60 days.

Scope change

The bill's scope was expanded to explicitly include homeschooled children in the prohibitions against tracking and grading character education, and a new requirement for Constitutional government education was added.

REQUIREMENT

Added a new section requiring schools to teach Constitutional government education, covering topics like the Declaration of Independence and the structure of government.

Removed specific references to 'implementing' character education from the list of prohibited actions for school personnel.

DEFINITION

Redefined 'character education' to focus on subjective traits and explicitly prohibited using social-emotional learning frameworks to standardize or grade students.

ELIGIBILITY

Extended the prohibition on tracking and grading character education to explicitly include homeschooled children.

ENFORCEMENT

Increased the time allowed for public entities to provide an assurance of compliance after a violation is found, changing it from 14 days to 60 calendar days.

Introduced → Substitute #1 · 7 edits

MODERATE

This bill was significantly rewritten to strengthen protections against the tracking and grading of student character education. The new version expands the definition of 'character education' to include a wider range of social-emotional learning programs and clarifies that parents retain sole authority over their children's character development. It also adds new sections requiring the state auditor to enforce compliance with these character education restrictions and mandates the inclusion of ethnic studies in the core curriculum.

Scope change

The bill's scope was expanded to explicitly include 'public entities' alongside LEAs and to add specific requirements for ethnic studies curriculum and health instruction, while the definition of prohibited activities was broadened to cover more types of data collection and tracking.

DEFINITION

The definition of 'character education' was broadened to include current or historical frameworks, models, and tools from various sources, and the list of alternative terms (like 'soft skills' or 'wellbeing') was updated.

New definitions were added for 'public entity' and 'refusal skills' to clarify the scope of the bill and the content of health education.

REQUIREMENT

A new requirement was added to incorporate ethnic studies into the core standards for Utah public schools, including specific focus on diverse ethnicities and shared identity.

New requirements were added to health instruction to include the 'success sequence' framework and specific refusal skills regarding sexual advances.

The list of prohibited data collection activities was expanded to include collecting data for use in 'dashboards' or 'digital interfaces' and was broadened to cover 'monitoring' and 'grading' character education.

New provisions were added to prohibit school employees or volunteers from supporting or encouraging criminal conduct, even when acting outside their official capacity if it disrupts school activities.

ENFORCEMENT

Enforcement powers were strengthened by requiring the state auditor to publish complaint statistics on a dashboard and by changing the penalty for violations from a fixed fine to the withholding of state funds until compliance is confirmed.

Floor votes

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Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Mar 5, 2026

Lower · Passed

House/ comm rpt/ sent to Rules [House Rules Committee]

lower

Mar 4, 2026

Lower · Passed

House Comm - Recommends Returned to Rules [House Education Committee]

lower

Feb 13, 2026

Lower · Passed

House Comm - Held [House Education Committee]

lower

Feb 9, 2026

Committee

House/ to standing committee [House Education Committee]

lower

Jan 28, 2026

Introduced

House/ 1st reading (Introduced)

lower

1 primary · 0 co-sponsors