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Utah House committee advances bill to replace junior-high digital skills course with social-media, AI literacy

Utah House Education Standing Committee · February 4, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

The House Education Committee unanimously recommended HB 2.18, which replaces the current 7th–8th grade digital skills class with a digital literacy course focused on social media harms, digital privacy, cybersecurity and responsible AI; an amendment narrowed content for middle-school audiences and the fiscal note was reported as zero.

Representative Tuscher urged the committee to support HB 2.18, describing it as a redesign of the existing seventh‑ and eighth‑grade digital skills class to emphasize digital protection, social‑media awareness, digital privacy, cybersecurity basics and responsible use of AI. “We can incorporate that into that class…so it doesn't add any new additional requirements,” Tuscher said (Rep. Tuscher).

The sponsor said the bill grew from consultations with the governor's office, the State Board of Education and community stakeholders and is intended to address…

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