UT HB0488

Requires the State Board of Education to develop comprehensive, free open educational resource (OER) instructional materials for social studies and civics education in grades K-12, including teacher resources, student materials, and implementation guides, all openly licensed under Creative Commons and available through a centralized digital platform; LEAs are not required to adopt the materials.

Mandates social studies instruction for grades 4-12 beginning in the 2028-2029 school year on "American Exceptionalism" and comparative government systems, including detailed study of communist regimes' human rights abuses (e.g., China's Cultural Revolution, Ukraine's Holodomor, Cambodian genocide) contrasted with the principles of the U.S. constitutional republic.

Requires instruction on the Bible (Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament) as a literary and historical text that influenced American constitutional history and civic thought, with safeguards that instruction must be objective, academic, and neither promote nor disparage any religious viewpoint.

Beginning in the 2028-2029 school year, requires English language arts assessments to integrate age-appropriate passages and questions drawn from founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Federalist Papers, and Utah Constitution.

Shifts authority to local education agencies (LEAs) to determine whether applied crafts and technical arts courses (e.g., woodworking, welding, digital design) meet fine arts credit requirements, rather than automatically accepting all such courses for credit. The bill takes effect July 1, 2026, and appropriates no money.