SB 56 Utah Senate · 2026 General Session

Citizenship Education Amendments

Utah's SB 56 requires public schools to provide legal awareness education to all 10th-grade students starting in the 2026-27 school year. The bill mandates coverage of specific topics like voting rights, jury duty, contracts, healthcare consent, tax obligations, workplace protections, and interactions with law enforcement. Schools may deliver this information through existing courses, assemblies, or digital resources, without creating new courses or requiring student testing. The law emphasizes using current, age-appropriate materials and does not alter existing curricula or create new assessments. It directly affects Utah's 10th-grade students and public school districts.

Issues: ✓ Education

Bill status failed 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Jan 2026

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Jan 20, 2026 Last action Mar 7, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 2 comparisons

What changed between versions

Amended Excerpts 3/3/2026 09:03:936 → Amended 3/3/2026 09:03:936 · 4 edits

MODERATE

The bill was amended to expand the scope of legal awareness education for 10th grade students from basic rights to a comprehensive list of 15 specific topics including contracts, healthcare consent, taxes, employment rights, and criminal justice consequences. The amendment also added protections preventing mandatory testing on this information and clarifying that LEAs are not required to create new courses to deliver the content.

Scope change

The bill now requires a broader range of legal topics to be covered in legal awareness education, moving beyond the original three topics to include 15 specific areas of adult legal responsibility.

REQUIREMENT

Added 12 new legal awareness topics including contract rights, healthcare consent, tax obligations, employment protections, criminal justice consequences, and civil liability.

Added explicit exclusions stating the law does not require new courses, student testing, or create private rights of action.

Changed language from requiring LEAs to ensure information is provided to allowing LEAs to provide information, while still maintaining requirements if they choose to provide it.

TECHNICAL

Updated formatting and section numbering throughout the document to reflect Senate amendments.

Floor votes

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Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Amendments

Mar 3, 2026

Upper · Passed

Senate/ comm rpt/ sent to Rules/ amended [Senate Rules Committee]

upper

Mar 3, 2026

Upper · Passed

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

upper

Jan 29, 2026

Introduced

Senate Comm - Amendment Recommendation [Senate Education Committee]

upper

Jan 20, 2026

Committee

Senate/ to standing committee [Senate Education Committee]

upper

Jan 20, 2026

Introduced

Senate/ 1st reading (Introduced)

upper

1 primary · 0 co-sponsors