Third graders in Cottonwood Heights and Holladay face a looming deadline. A new state law will hold back students who can't read on grade level starting in 2030, and statewide reading scores in that grade have not improved in three years.

The Utah State Board of Education (USBE) released 2025-26 results from the RISE and Aspire Plus tests showing 45.4% of students proficient in English language arts (ELA), 42.5% in math and 49.8% in science, the Salt Lake Tribune reported Tuesday, Sept. 15. Fewer than half of students met proficiency in every core subject.

Science was the only subject to surpass pre-pandemic levels, reaching a record 49.8% proficiency. ELA remains more than a percentage point below the 2019 baseline of 46.8%, and math trails its pre-pandemic mark by more than two points, the Deseret News reported Monday, Sept. 14.

The early grades carry the sharpest stakes. Third-grade reading proficiency has stayed flat since the 2022-23 school year. Under SB241, the state's new third-grade retention law, schools were required to roll out literacy interventions for grades K-3 in fall 2026. If reading gains don't accelerate by 2030, roughly 25% of Utah's third graders could face being held back.

A June 2026 Utah Legislative audit found no sustained statewide improvement in the share of students meeting the third-grade reading benchmark in at least nine years. The audit pointed to first grade as the weak link, stating that gaps in first-grade reading performance contribute to stalled progress by third grade because more students enter second grade already needing help.

"Fully half of our third graders are not reading on grade level — and that's a community issue," Utah First Lady Abby Cox said in August as students headed back to school, as quoted in a Sept. 13 Deseret News editorial.

Granite School District board member Julie Jackson, who represents Precinct 1 covering Holladay and Millcreek, said in a May 28 Holladay Journal interview that increasing English and math literacy by 1% was one of the district's two main goals for the year. Jackson noted that Granite, which includes Olympus and Skyline high schools, serves one of the largest at-risk student populations in the state. Brighton High School, in the Canyons School District, also feeds from Cottonwood Heights elementary schools where the same statewide trends apply.

Achievement gaps remain wide. Black students' proficiency rates lagged at least 20 percentage points behind white peers across all subjects and grades. Fewer than 21% of English language learners scored proficient in any tested subject. Native American students did not exceed 23% proficiency in any subject or grade.

District-level results for Canyons and Granite have not yet been published. The USBE posts school and district data on its public dashboard at datagateway.schools.utah.gov, where families can check their children's school once breakdowns become available.