With targeted support for Indigenous students under HB75, “the playing field will become a little bit more level,” one official said.
‘We would like a real plan’: Utah will be required to help struggling Native American students after years of inaction With targeted support for Indigenous students under HB75, “the playing field will become a little bit more level,” one official said.
A Ute Indian Tribe school bus is seen in this photo from April 2023. Utah could finally be required to create a statewide plan to support Native students under a new bill introduced during the 2026 legislative session.For decades the data has clearly shown: Native American students are the demographic most likely to be left behind in Utah’s classrooms. They are the students most likely to fail year-end tests and the least likely to read on grade level. They are also the least likely to graduate and the most likely to drop out of high school. Rep. Christine Watkins, R-Price, speaks during a news conference at the Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. For the 2026 legislative session, she is sponsoring HB75 to require the state create a formal plan for supporting Native students., sailed through the Legislature, already passing through both the House and Senate and is now headed to the governor’s office for a signature.conservative Rep. Nicholeen Peck, of Tooele, said: “Why are we singling out a special population when they’re already in schools where hopefully every student matters, not just their race?” But the bill isn’t about race — being Native is a political identity, as Indigenous students are citizens of sovereign nations, several tribal leaders told The Salt Lake Tribune in response to Peck’s criticism. And if every student matters, Watkins said, the state has a responsibility to intervene if one group isn’t getting what they need to succeed — which comes after a legacy of trauma from“Because of it, they might not relate to the teachers. They fall behind in learning,” said George Gover, who is Pawnee and recently stepped down as the executive director ofWatkins also responded to Peck, speaking about schools with a larger makeup of Native students, which her bill focuses on. “It’s hard for me to explain to you because you’ve never been there,” Watkins said. “I’ve been in these schools. They are great schools. But there are significant cultural differences.” Before joining the Legislature, Watkins was a teacher in rural Utah’s Castle Dale. Watkins then worked as a staff member for the state’s overarching teachers union The parents won and set national precedent for Native education when the district was required to start offering classes in the Navajo, or Diné, language and to build schools on the Navajo Nation’s reservation. Watkins’ bill has the backing of many tribal leaders in the state — even those who still have some questions about how it will work. That includes Mike Natchees,Natchees feels the state has long wanted to study the problem of Native kids falling behind instead of actually addressing it.The San Juan School District in southern Utah serves the highest percentage of Native students in the state, with roughly 1,600 out of 2,800 total enrolled. Progress there has been slow since the decades-old lawsuit, but there have been marked improvements for Remote San Juan County is pictured in this 2020 file image. Only 10% in third through eighth grade were proficient in reading and math for the last academic school year, ending in spring 2025. Meanwhile, their other San Juan County classmates hit about 40% for both of those subjects; that matches statewide levels for all students. Uintah and Duchesne County School Districts in the eastern corner of Utah both follow next for their Native student populations. That’s where’s Uintah and Ouray Reservation sits, and the nearly 700 Ute students there in K-12 are split across the two public districts.In the Uintah County School District, 10% of students in third through eighth grades last school year could proficiently read. Fewer than that — 8% — hit grade level for math. In Duchesne County School District, Native students scored worse in both subjects than the year before: 11% for reading and 7% for math.included Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson promising to “see how the state can do things differently to ensure ALL students have a good education — especially Native students in the Uinta Basin.” But nothing followed. And previous efforts were limited. In 2016, lawmakers provided funding to the Uintah School District to try and curb teacher turnover at Eagle View Elementary, which enrolls a high number of the district’s Ute students. The district spent the money on a van to drive teachers who live in Vernal to and from the school. That helped reduce turnover to an average of 13% of educators leaving annually. And lower teacher turnover typically leads to better student results. But it’s not clear that intervention has helped, at least based on standardized test scores. For the Native students at Eagle View Elementary in spring 2025, 8% were proficient in reading and 9% in math — worse than the overall districtwide scores for all Indigenous kids.Watkins says it’s time to take more decisive statewide action. Her measure notably does not call for any new funding. Instead, it directs the Utah State Board of Education to use already allocated money from years past and better direct how it’s spent. HB75 is focused only on schools with the highest concentrations of Indigenous students to start. Those currently lie in the more remote and rural areas of the state. To be part of the state plan, at least 29% of a school’s enrolled students must be Native. That’s a fairly high benchmark: Only 14 of the 1,063 schools in the state meet that, based on The Tribune’s calculations using this fall’s enrollment numbers. Nine of those schools are in San Juan County, including Navajo Mountain High School, which only has 13 students — and all 13 are Native. Because of how students are split up across schools, though, Native enrollment can be easily spread out, making it hard to qualify. So despite having 374 Native students, Uintah County School District only has one school that hits above the mark: Eagle View Elementary. And Duchesne County School District ends up with zero schools, even with 298 Native students. Both Uintah and Duchesne have several schools each that fall just outside the parameters., a former education leader for the Ute Indian Tribe, said that model has worked to support Native students and improve their test scores;“This has been needed for years,” he said. “But anything will help — anything to call attention to the deficiencies.” Three other districts each have one school on the list. Those are: Ibapah Elementary in Tooele County School District, near whereis situated; and Nebo School District’s Advanced Learning Center in Utah County, which serves a small general population of students that includes many from various tribes in the state. In this Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2019 photo, Delaine Spilsbury, an elder of the Ely Shoshone tribe, holds up a Confederated Tribes of Goshute Reservation. Dr. Harold "Chuck" Foster, the American Indian Specialist at the Utah State Board of Education, Tuesday, May 9, 2023.at Brigham Young University that pushes to integrate Indigenous art into K-12 curriculum. She called the bill “definitely a small step.”Beyal said she’d like to see more teachers incorporating Indigenous ways of teaching into their lesson plans to cater to Native students and their unique way of learning. Brenda Beyal is an enrolled member of the Diné Nation, born into the Salt clan and born for the Towering House People., which is supported by research. But members of the Ute Business Committee say that has largely been ignored by the state. Natchees, a member of the committee, said the current education model “wasn’t really built” for Indigenous students. But with the right consultation with tribal leaders, he thinks that could finally start to shift. “We feel like those cultural lessons shouldn’t just be an elective,” he said. “It needs to be an integral piece of the curriculum.” He’d also like to see the state address who is qualified to teach in the classroom, particularly around Native languages. There are Ute elders, he said, who would be the most valuable educators for that. But it’s difficult for them to become licensed teachers.The new statewide education plan for Native students must be adopted by the Utah State Board of Education by January 2027, according to the bill. Watkins notes in the language that it needs to “focus on specific actions” to intervene, which Natchees appreciates and said gives him some hope that things might actually change for the first time. The Ute Education Department helps Native students with their grades.For over 150 years, The Salt Lake Tribune has been Utah’s independent news source. Our reporters work tirelessly to uncover the stories that matter most to Utahns, from unraveling the complexities of court rulings to allowing tax payers to see where and how their hard earned dollars are being spent. This critical work wouldn’t be possible without people like you—individuals who understand the importance of local, independent journalism. As a nonprofit newsroom, every subscription and every donation fuels our mission, supporting the in-depth reporting that shines a light on the is sues shaping Utah today.An Indigenous author felt compelled to cancel her Utah appearance after this university gave her a list of banned DEI words This Navajo student is likely the first-ever Native speaker at a University of Utah graduation. Here’s what she said.From racist cartoons to NCAA approval: A timeline of the Ute Indian Tribe’s relationship with the University of Utah
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