Effective January 1, 2016, every Utah public school student must pass a basic civics test, or alternate assessment, as a condition for receiving a high school diploma in the state of Utah. The students must pass a test comprised of 50 questions selected from the 100 questions on the United States Customs and Immigration Service civics assessment that can be found here (PDF).
Local education agencies will be responsible for the creation and administration of the assessment, and will have flexibility in how they administer this assessment. This was the intention of the sponsors of the legislation. The assessment can be administered as a multiple-choice exam. There are sample multiple choice exams that may prove helpful for student practice.
The districts and charter schools in the SEDC region, or any other Utah LEA, have two options that have already been created to help fulfill this requirement:
An exam has been created in UTIPS Core that teachers, schools or districts can administer to their students. Follow the instructions in this document (PDF) to implement this test in UTIPS Core.
A Canvas course is available in the Canvas Commons that has both review modules for students and the 50-question exam. If you use Canvas in your district or school, this may be the easiest option. You can search the Commons for “Utah Civics” to find the course, or you can download a Canvas import file of the course here.
