State to add emergency‑safety‑intervention fields and new infraction codes after Legislature’s bills; aim to reduce 'other' incident tallies

Utah State Board of Education incident data staff said the agency will add required fields and new validation logic to UTREx after reviewing local workgroup feedback and two 2025 bills that affect reporting.

Willie, who leads incident data work, said the state will add at least one new field for “reason for alternate placement,” multiple new infraction codes intended to disaggregate incidents previously coded as “other,” and six new data fields required by Senate Bill 170 related to emergency safety interventions (ESIs). Those ESI fields include incident outcomes, duration in minutes (with guidance that duration should not exceed 30 minutes), whether alternative interventions were used, basic demographics, and whether staff involved received relevant training.

Willie also said the state will deprecate “sexual assault” as a separate infraction code and fold it under the broader “sexual harassment” category to align with federal definitions and Title IX processes. The change, he said, aims to reduce duplication and ensure incidents follow required due‑process pathways.

Senate Bill 223 clarified bullying reporting by distinguishing student bullying from staff bullying. As part of that change, incident reporting will move from the older “offender/victim” language to “subject” in the PI role fields. To address chronic underreporting of subjects, the UTREx team will make the student number conditionally required for I2 incident records when bullying, cyberbullying, hazing, retaliation, harassment, or sexual harassment is selected. For those infractions, submitting only a single I2 record will generally be insufficient; the system will require a second I2 record to capture both parties when appropriate. Willie said the team recognizes that some incidents legitimately lack an identifiable student subject and that the validation will be conditional to allow those cases.

To help LEAs map changes in their SIS and data workflows, the agency will publish an appendix in the UTREx specifications with clear definitions, statutory references, and example scenarios for the infraction codes and flags. That appendix will be designed to support SIS mapping and local training. Staff expect the specification updates and validation changes to be available in the July update so LEAs can begin planning SIS mappings and data collection changes.

Willie and staff encouraged LEAs to prepare SISs to capture the new fields. They said they are building SIF mappings and additional validation messages to help LEAs understand why a record may be rejected or flagged.

The changes are intended to improve data quality and the state’s ability to analyze disciplinary patterns and use the data for program and policy decisions, including identification of training needs related to ESIs and more targeted tracking of bullying incidents.