USBE staff outline timeline for student "backpack," finance API and data-access controls

Utah State Board of Education staff on April 29 briefed district and charter representatives on progress for USIMS, the state's new education data platform, including pilot finance API work with vendors, a target schedule for student-record transfer capabilities called the "student backpack," and a phased rollout of technical access controls for LEAs and vendors.

Mark Waters, product owner for the student domain at USIMS, said the team is targeting July 1 to finish the first set of API endpoints that will let local student-information systems pull student-backpack data. He said an IEP-sharing mechanism is targeted for Jan. 1, 2026, and full integration across all SIS vendors and LEAs is targeted for July 1, 2026.

The student backpack is designed to move a subset of student records when a pupil transfers between local education agencies (LEAs). Waters said the project's early scope includes demographic data, assessment summaries and other records intended to give receiving LEAs faster access to critical information such as special-education status. "Our target for finishing the endpoints ... is July 1," Waters said. He illustrated the problem by describing a transfer in which a receiving district did not learn a student had an IEP for almost three…