Episode 84: Utah Legislation with Board Members Teri McCabe and Jennifer Partridge

April 11th, 2025 /
Spencer Tuinei /

Sup with the Sup

00:00 / 31:49

Wendy Dau: Welcome everyone to the next episode of Provo City School District’s What’s up with the Sup podcast. I am superintendent Wendy Dau. This week I am joined by School Board President Jennifer Partridge and board member Teri McCabe, and we are going to have a discussion about recent Utah legislation that was passed.

In the 2025 legislative session. But first, let me give you our updates.

Congratulations to Edgemont Assistant Principal Des Olson for being recognized as the Assistant Principal of the Year for the state of Utah. Way to go, Des!
Congratulations to Franklin Music Teacher, Kayla Spurlock, for receiving the Sorenson Legacy Award for Excellence in Arts Education.
There are a number of Policies or Procedures available for review on our district website.
- Go to provo.edu.
  - Click on Policies, Forms, and Documents.
  - You can click on review Draft Policies here.
The Board of Education has recently started to hear information from the Boundary and Feasibility Study.
- As part of its next steps, a community engagement survey has been created for employees, parents, and community members to take.
  - You can find the survey on the district website at provo.edu.
The next School Board Meeting is on Tuesday, April 15th.
- The Study Session will begin at 4:10 PM in Boardroom One, and the Business Meeting will be at 7:00 PM in the Professional Development Center.
  - Please check the district website prior to the meeting to see the full agenda.
A presentation on the Boundary and Feasibility study will be taking place during this board meeting.
- Continue watching for my weekly Videocasts in your email.
  - These Videocasts provide one place for you to learn about important things happening across the district.

Welcome everyone to this week’s podcast. We have Jennifer Partridge, who is the Provo City School District’s President of the Board of Education. Welcome.

And we have Teri McCabe, who is also one of our board members.

So today we’re gonna talk a little bit about the recent legislative session.

Both of you serve on our legislative committee. Why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about what is the purpose of this committee and what kind of work that you do as board members to support the school district during the legislative session?

Jennifer Partridge: Well, the purpose of our committee is we recognize that it is really important for us to have relationships with our legislators, especially the ones that represent Provo.

And that there are entities like the legislature, like the city council, that their decisions may affect, and often do affect, what we do here in our school district. And so we organize as a committee so that we can have ways to reach out to them to be talking about what legislation is happening.

How should we advocate for or against something– how will it affect us so we know what to advocate for. So being proactive in a lot of those things.

Wendy Dau: And the legislative committee meets year round, but during the legislative session we meet weekly. So, Teri, you do a lot of the agenda writing on putting everything together and keeping us kind of apprised of a lot of the education committee meetings or interim committee meetings.

Tell us a little bit about what that’s been like for this last legislative session.

Teri McCabe: I’ve been doing this for two years doing the agenda and it actually takes a long time.

Wendy Dau: Yes, it does.

Teri McCabe: I usually stay after the meetings and sit in the boardroom and for an hour working on the agenda for the next meeting.

Wendy Dau: Oh, that’s smart.

Teri McCabe: Yeah. While it’s all fresh in my brain. And I have to go through that current meeting’s agenda and deleted things we didn’t need to talk about next week, or add things that we need to work on for the next week. And then I always check all the house education committee schedule and the Senate Education Committee schedule.

And then if a bill that’s education related that’s not assigned to the education committees. I check the, that committees, like for example HB 40 is the latest school security bill and it was assigned to house criminal justice committees. That’s right. So I checked their schedule to make sure, okay.

When is that bill on that schedule and then it didn’t get assigned to, the Senate Education Committee got assigned to a different,– so I have to check this. When it got moved to the Senate.

Wendy Dau: That just takes a lot of time, doesn’t it?

Teri McCabe: Yeah. You just–

Wendy Dau: it’s a full-time job during the legislative session.

Teri McCabe: Yeah. And I’m trying to — right now I’m working on the schedule for the interim session this year, and I’m basing it off of last year’s ’cause it hasn’t been released yet.

Wendy Dau: So it’s tricky. Yeah. Super tricky. You know, a lot of people think that as a school district, we have to be completely neutral when it comes to things that are tied to the legislature. So talk about what our role is as. Education leaders as we’re working with the legislature in this ’cause I think this is a misconception that people have because these bills are affecting what we’re doing, and so we need to let people know what that looks like.

So how do we navigate that?

Teri McCabe: I’m never neutral.

Jennifer Partridge: You’re neutral on. Specific legislators and things like that, right? But issues that affect what we do, it is important that we weigh in on how will this affect us? And if we can perceive this is gonna be fantastic, we wanna say, please! Please, right?

Adopt this. Right? And if it is going to be harmful and a detriment to what we’re trying to accomplish here. They need to know that so that they can make the most effective decisions.

Teri McCabe: That’s right. And not just education in general, but pro specific point. How is this bill gonna affect students in Provo?

Wendy Dau: Because what might be good for a larger school district or for a rural school district might not have the same impact here in Provo. Talk with us about how we have worked with legislators, even outside of the legislative session to build relationships with them get them into our schools and what that looks like and how you’ve been able to contact them and work with them through the session. Because both of you were highly involved with our legislators.

Jennifer Partridge: Yeah, so we have reached out to them multiple times. In fact, we’re about to do so once again and we just find some classrooms.

We’d love for them to come see– we’re having opportunities to get them in multiple times. So we want them to see different aspects, you know, elementary or secondary, or we want them to see the great things that we’re doing and our amazing teachers and students but we also want them to get a perspective on some of our challenges.

They could then hopefully help us out with, on some of the things that they’re able to do from there end. And as we’ve done that over time, it’s built a great relationship and we’ve also had a few opportunities where we get them all together or most of them together in one meeting, and we are able to just sit and discuss things.

We did that last year when we just opened Shoreline Middle School. We gave him a tour of the school and then met with them. And in that meeting we discussed with them how we would love to see education legislation come together better.

Right now it just seems like people are putting bills out there and not really coordinating. Like, what is our plan for education in our state? And so as we brainstormed together, Senator McKell said, Hey, it sounds like we should do something like what we do with our water, where we have a commission, and that commission works on things before it ever goes to the water committee at the legislature. Let’s do something like that with education. And Senator Stratton, he loved that idea too, and actually worked on a build this time about that, this session. It did not finish going through, but it’s a process and we’ll refine it during the interim and we’ll be bringing it back for next session.

And I think we can really make a huge difference with something like that. And it just came because we were able to talk with them together and have a great conversation.

Wendy Dau: Well, and I think too, they have really begun to understand that every bill then results in policies and oversight. And so they are trying to understand that and to kind of rein that in and to ask us for what our opinions are about–

is this bill necessary? Is this something we could do at the local level? So tell us, Teri, a little bit about some of the conversations you’ve had with legislators about different bills and how that’s worked as you’ve built relationships with them.

Teri McCabe: So. Last year, some of the new legislators actually reached out to us and asked us, because they’re brand new legislators.

Wendy Dau: As most elected officials don’t– we don’t– we don’t teach elected officials about their jobs very long. It’s a learning curve.

Teri McCabe: Let’s explain how this specific bill in the last legislative session affected Provo School District and what we had to do, and let’s make that process better for.

Some of them reached out to us board members and during the session, Hey, this bill’s coming up, what do you guys think about that? So that’s been really nice because we’ve been able to reach out and make those relationships work. And then Lisa Shepherd was setting up a town hall for the House Representatives.

A bunch of us went to it last night because she reached out and wanted us to be there. Thankfully we didn’t have to answer any questions, but it was good to be there if they need us.

Wendy Dau: It demonstrates this collaboration, right? Like we’re working together because we care about our community.

I think Lisa Shepherd and Dave Shallenberger both did that to reach out before they were even in office. What were some of the bills that you felt like they needed to hear our perspective about different things, or maybe you just reached out personally to a legislator and said, you need to just have this perspective on this particular bill.

Teri McCabe: I did HB 191. Jordan Teuscher.

Wendy Dau: Yep. Jordan Teuscher’s Bill.

Teri McCabe: I specifically emailed him and asked him if he would move the effective date from May seventh to July first. And then I gave him specific dates. Provo High School graduation is on this date, Timpview High School graduation is this date and it’s after the effective date.

And it would affect those kids graduating. And we would only have two weeks that’s right for them to be in compliance with this bill. Can you please change the date? And then he emailed back and he’s like, oh, thank you for letting me know.

Wendy Dau: Yep. And it got changed to July 1st. Yes. Yes.

Teri McCabe: And that kind of snowballed ’cause I think I wasn’t the only one that’s emailed that.

Wendy Dau: Yep. And a whole bunch of bills changed their effective date to July 1st. That has been a major concern that we’ve had, is that you’re still in school and you’re kind of winding down the school year, and then all of a sudden you gotta worry about bills that are coming into effect , and if your policies are accurately reflecting that stuff at the very end of the school year.

What about you, Jennifer?

Jennifer Partridge: Oh, there’s quite a few. There were just several bills that affected the funding mechanisms. And how they set that up. And so I reached out to committee members, and some of our local legislators about my concerns.

I’m trying to understand that the state is needing to balance their budget. They have other needs besides education and their funding sources. You know, they need some flexibility with some of that, but there were concerns of how that would affect education, not only for this year, but for the future to make sure that we have enough to support our schools, and how can we do so and give even more support to our schools that we continue to need. So.

It feels sometimes that you reach out and you’re not sure if you’re actually heard, because maybe you don’t get the vote that you were hoping to get on that. But I think it’s still good to try.

They have to weigh a lot of things besides just how we feel about it. Right. It was good to at least try.

Wendy Dau: I think it goes back to any given situation, right? That people are gonna have differing opinions about how they want to see something out. And just because it doesn’t necessarily go exactly your way doesn’t mean that somebody didn’t still give pause. And listen to you. It’s just like you said, there’s many different factors that are coming into play

Jennifer Partridge: Which is exactly as school board members our job as well, right? Anything we’re voting on the public comes to us and we weigh what the public is asking, and one constituent will tell us one thing and another constituent will want us to go totally different direction. And yet we also have other perspectives of some of the things maybe they’re not seeing, that we’re seeing more in the operational side or whatever.

And so you have to weigh all of that and, and I try to be understanding of that for our legislators as well.

Wendy Dau: What is a bill that you felt really passionate about, Teri, this session, that you were just following intently and maybe you had worries about, or you really wanted to make sure that our views were communicated to our leaders?

Teri McCabe: This year, not, there wasn’t one bill. But at the very beginning there was a– a bill that I specifically– I think it was the very first house education committee meeting. Firearm education in elementary schools.

My son is in first grade and I was like, no, he doesn’t need to know that. My husband and I will teach him if we want him to know. This doesn’t need to be taught in schools. So I specifically spoke during that committee.

Wendy Dau: Kind of just where does that responsibility lie in terms of where the education should happen? Is it with the school, is it with the parent? What does that look like?

Jennifer Partridge: And I think that leads to a broader discussion we try to have with our legislators about– there are a lot of good ideas out there. And so just because it might be a good idea does not necessarily mean it needs to be a law, right? Is it something that is a statewide problem or issue that should be handled at the state level, or is this something that locally elected school boards should be deciding for their own district and another district might decide differently.?

Wendy Dau: Yeah. Right. I mean, we hear that all the time. I think especially in Utah, is that Utah’s a very different state than other states. And we would like to have more control at our state level rather than at a federal level.

And so we feel kind of the same way even when you talk with city councils and county commissions and different things, they would like that control to be more localized. Do you think any of that sometimes could stem from, I feel like as a board you’re very responsive to the constituents.

Are there maybe boards that aren’t as responsive to constituents and so legislators feel like they have to insert themselves? Or is it they’re just trying to solve a problem and help people that are bringing issues to them. How do we help with that?

Teri McCabe: I think one of the problems too, Jennifer’s brought this up before, is that

a parent has an issue and doesn’t go through the process. Doesn’t say, teacher, let’s fix this problem and then go to the principal, and then goes to the superintendent, and then goes to the board. They go straight to their legislator. Skip all the steps. Like, it could have just been fixed in the classroom.

It doesn’t need to be fixed at the state level. So I really wish legislators would say, well, did you go back and talk to the teacher first? Instead of just, oh, okay, I can make a bill for this. Everybody does things differently, so.

Wendy Dau: It allows us to meet the needs of our community more effectively.

Teri McCabe: Fix it at the local–

Wendy Dau: fix it at the local level for sure.

We always have to problem solve and figure things out, so we’ll always do that. But were there bills that really created concern for you as school board members?

Teri McCabe: I think for me it’s gotta be the financial bills. I know everybody’s talking about HB 267 right now. Yeah. But is it SB 73?

HB 100 that wanted to change the way they fund schools. I think those are their two bills, SB 102– were way more concerning to me, you know, we need to educate the kids and if we don’t have money to do that–

Wendy Dau: right. Especially as you’re going into a budget planning season. Right? Yeah, for sure.

Jennifer Partridge: The big one for me that I focused on a lot was just the overall discussion we’ve been having the last couple years about vouchers.

The Utah Fits All program. The legislature had allocated 82 million to it previously and just getting the sense that they were probably gonna allocate more this year when we’re only in the first year of the program. And there are a lot of concerns about how some of that is happening, and we have no data to know the effectiveness.

You know, there’s a whole list of concerns. I was concerned enough about it that I reached out not only to our legislators, but to the community in general, and even to people I know in other parts of the state we need to talk to our legislators about this and address our concerns and ask them to not put any more money until we have thoroughly figured out how we want the system to work, just like we have with other programs in the state for education.

We don’t put a lot more money into it until we’ve gotten the data on it. They still gave more money this year. But I do feel that the efforts we put in on that were effective because there was house Bill 455, and that had a lot of amendments to how the program is run.

I think there’s still room for improvement, but it made very big, positive strides in the right direction to have more accountability for the program and better parameters on the use of the taxpayer money that is going towards those.

I think that’s a good testament to, you don’t always get everything you want, right?

But you can still make a difference. Your voice still matters. And I hope that all of our community members listening will know that that’s important at every level. When they have something they wanna talk to the board about, your voice makes a difference. When you help reach out to the legislators, whether it’s education issue or anything else, it does make a difference.

So thank you to those of you who, who are doing that.

Wendy Dau: I also appreciated how much legislators are responsive. In the sense that, you know, you don’t just come out and say, I don’t like this bill. This is a bad bill. If you help them understand this part of the bill creates this unintended consequence, sometimes they don’t realize that and they’re like, oh, well what would you suggest?

Like that’s literally the response that you get. And they’re willing to listen to individuals to get the language changed, and that’s really been helpful in many cases– to just even tweaking of some things. Or like Teri, you said, you know, changing of the date so it’s not May 7th. You know, just being aware of when school gets out and I think a lot of times they just want to know those kinds of things, whereas if it just comes in and we don’t like anything, that’s not a helpful nor productive conversation.

What do you think the implications are gonna be as we look through– there’s over 70– if I, I can’t remember the exact number of bills that were passed that were education related– how many policies are we thinking that this is going to lead to? Because this is what, well, how many?

This is what creates my anxiety.

Teri McCabe: How many created from last year? Almost 80.

Wendy Dau: Yeah, it’s a lot of work. Even if you’re just updating a policy.

Teri McCabe: And thankfully I’m not on the policy committee so I don’t have to do this board meetings .

Wendy Dau: What would you like the public to know about that?

Like what happens when this legislation gets passed? How does that work once it comes to the school district? What do we do with that?

Jennifer Partridge: It’s a whole process, right? So we have to look at it, and I know that you, Wendy, go to meetings with other superintendents and get better direction from the state office of, okay, here’s what this legislation means in practicality.

And then as a district, we look at it, we take it to our policy committee, and step by step, okay, what do we need to change? Some of it we’re– often already doing, or we just need to make minor changes. Sometimes it’s a totally new policy. And then when policies, they first start at the policy committee. And then once they’re ready, they come before the board looks at it as a first reading. Then we– it takes some time to make sure it’s all good and let the public look at it too. And then we have the second reading before we vote. So it takes months. And you can’t do all 70 at the same time, right? So some of them, it takes a lot of time.

And that’s one of the many reasons why we try to encourage our legislators– the statewide initiative from our school board association was called Push Pause. We don’t need as many bills. Let’s look at what’s the most important, the most relevant. And it sounds like maybe we got a few less than last year.

Wendy Dau: Yes, we did. It’s still quite a lot. Right. Well, and I think too, one of the things one of our cabinet members talked about is how much time we’re spending on policy from school board members to cabinet people, to other individuals that could really be spent on focusing on data and student learning and being in schools and classrooms and those pieces.

We don’t have a dedicated policy writer in Provo City School Districts. Some school districts do that, that does pull time away from other things that I don’t know that people realize.

Jennifer Partridge: Well, and that’s exactly the message I’ve been trying to tell our legislators. I would much rather have my superintendent focused on student achievement and the things that are really gonna make that difference for the individual students in our schools than spending time writing the policies and in all those meetings about it.

Wendy Dau: And I mean, those are important. You’re gonna have some of that.

Jennifer Partridge: Yeah, for sure.

And especially this one bill, about school safety. There was one this year. There was one last year, and put together–

Teri McCabe: And the year before that, there’s three– three years in a row now.

Jennifer Partridge: So the amount of time just on this one bill, and we want our students to be safe, but I am concerned of how much this is all coming at us so fast.

We don’t have the capacity to handle it all and still be able to effectively do our most important job.

Teri McCabe: And maybe a bigger school district who has more employees can do that. But we’re a medium sized district with– it’s just you guys.

Wendy Dau: And sometimes the reality is that the majority of our school district– we have 41 school districts.

And really less than a dozen, I’m guessing, are those big school districts, right? The Wasatch Front ones? Most of them are facing the same thing we are, if not even to a greater degree.

Yeah. Like our rural ones. Yeah, agreed. You bring up the school safety bill. I think one of the things I was appreciative of was as they got feedback from a variety of education people, they kind of put in some graduated timelines, right?

So it’s not like everything has to be in place in the next year. It’s finally, it’s over the next 10 years that we have some, you know, options. But that really took a whole bunch of people really vocalizing that because if that had not happened, I don’t know that that timeline would’ve been expanded.

Would you agree with that, Teri?

Teri McCabe: Yeah. ’cause I’m on the safety committee too. And the feeling from one specific legislator that is pushing these bills was like, an urgency. You have to do it now. Every school district has to get these things in place right now. And thankfully they, in the very first school safety bill, they hired a state safety —

Wendy Dau: a commissioner.

Teri McCabe: Mm-hmm. Yeah. His name’s Matt Pennington, and he’s doing a really good job. And he’s the one who’s been listening to all the schools and the local law enforcement and the SROs about what it’s actually like. And he’s a former SRO himself, and listening to the schools about how to implement this stuff.

And so his feedback to the legislators is helps as well.

Wendy Dau: He’s come and visited every–

Teri McCabe: He’s in the schools.

Wendy Dau: He comes to the districts and has really seen that firsthand so that it isn’t just–

Teri McCabe: And he is been to our safety community meeting too.

Wendy Dau: Yes. Yeah. So he can really kind of start to see the trend.

So that’s really helpful. I feel like sometimes our teachers really feel attacked sometimes by legislation that comes out. I think they feel very supported in Provo City School District, but you’re thinking as a board and us as district leaders, what can we do to help to reassure our teachers to just let them know like, it’s okay, like we care about you and what are some thoughts that you’ve had about that?

Teri McCabe: Well, we’re definitely coordinating with PEA, the Provo Educators Association more this year than we have in previous years. For at least for the legislative committee. And I think that helps a lot when we can coordinate better.

Jennifer Partridge: And so many of our board meetings, whatever we’re talking about, one of the board members will say, and what did the teachers think? Right? I’ve gone to different schools. There are teachers who will come up and say, Hey, we can see that you are being supportive, and we really appreciate that. So I recognize that they are seeing our efforts and I try really hard to advocate with our legislators just how much they are feeling it. Their profession is not valued. Like they’re not valued as the professionals that they are. And I’m thinking last sessions over a year ago, there was a bill or two that just really seem to not trust them to do their job, to know what is good curriculum, what our teachers have– our students’ best interest at heart.

They’re doing this because they care, not, definitely not for the money and our teachers are members of our community. And sometimes people look at things happening on a bigger stage, assume that maybe some of the negative that’s happening in another state is happening here. I just hope that people who might assume that will first come and look and come and see our amazing teachers and the good work that they are doing. And we want legislation that will support our students, will support our teachers but also give them the flexibility that any professional wants in their job to know that we trust them to do their job.

They’ve been trained. We give them the support they need, and then let’s let them be the professionals and the amazing people that they are.

Wendy Dau: What do we do as we go into this non legislative session? Because I– it’s still a legislative session in my mind. It’s just a non legislative legislative session.

Talk about the efforts that we take over the next six months as we prepare for the next legislative session. What kinds of things are we doing?

Teri McCabe: First, we have to know what the interim session schedule is.

Wendy Dau: Yes, we do.

Teri McCabe: We’re still waiting on that one. It’s in may. And we just have to pay attention to what’s on the agenda.

And one thing for sure that Jennifer just mentioned was Senator Stratton’s Education Commission, helping him get that on the agenda during the interim session. So it can be studied a lot of times, that’s really what– the legislators, from what I’m hearing, they just wanna study something over the rest of the year so that the next legislative session in 2026, they’re ready to pass the bills that were studied about.

Wendy Dau: Right. Yeah.

Jennifer Partridge: And I’ve talked with one of our representatives, there’s some desire there to talk with that person and someone else is not a Provo. Just how can we better coordinate education and legislation. So we hope to be working on that. And as we mentioned earlier, we’ve got plans to get our legislators, our local ones in our schools before the end of the school year.

We’re gonna also invite them in and have a meeting like we have before where we get everybody together and have some good discussions. So, sending them thank you notes. We just recently did that.

Wendy Dau: Yeah, we did.

Jennifer Partridge: Because we do appreciate their efforts. They passed over 500 bills.

I think they voted on like 900 or something. And that’s a lot of work. I don’t know how they sleep during that time. I think sometimes there’s a little tension between education and legislators.

Because of frustrations of what is or is not happening, but I think most of our local ones are really trying to see our perspective and weigh it carefully.

Wendy Dau: I would agree. I also think that their job is so thankless. I mean, when I think about the amount of emails that we get in terms of criticism, I can not even imagine how people treat them in emails. And I know they’re appreciative when people are respectful and civil and it is okay to disagree.

It’s okay to have a different perspective on something. It doesn’t make the person good or bad, it just means we have a different view on something that’s fine. So I think we have to get more into that space of, of what that looks like. And I have been very appreciative of our legislators in being very respectful in that space and, and being good at listening in that regard.

Anything else you wanna share about the legislative session and the role that the school board plays or just anything you wish our community knew about that maybe they don’t know about in terms of the work that we’re doing behind the scenes?

Teri McCabe: Keeping track of bills is exhausting. A lot of work.

Wendy Dau: It is a lot of work.

Jennifer Partridge: Thankfully the state has a really good website. Just one other thing that came to my mind. I don’t know, it quite answers your question, but the last couple years we’ve also taken some high school students up to The Capitol during the session and shown them the process ,and invited them to meet with all– like they met separately with each of our legislators.

Teri McCabe: And our student board members.

Jennifer Partridge: And it was a fantastic experience and great to see that generation getting excited about being involved, being civically minded.

Wendy Dau: And it speaks volumes that they’ll take the time to meet with our young people. Like I love it when people will do that for students. Like that’s a big deal to me because they’re setting that example and valuing and recognizing that they’re the next group that’s gonna start governing and.

And that we have to prepare them for all of those things. And so then I’m like, yes, that’s what our job is. That’s what we’re doing. So I really appreciate it when people are willing to take the time to be with our students, it’s a big deal.

Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast to talk about the legislative session, and here we go back to writing more policies and, and getting ready for the interim.

Appreciate your time. Thank you.

Jennifer Partridge: You’re welcome.

Wendy Dau: Thank you everyone for joining me for this week’s episode of What’s Up With the Sup. As always, all episodes will be posted on the district website, YouTube, and anywhere you get your podcast. If you have any topics or questions you would like us to discuss on the podcast, please email us at podcast@provo.edu.

And don’t forget to join us again next week for another new episode of What’s Up With the Sup. Have a great weekend everyone.

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