At Capitol Hill by 7 a.m., freshman representative Tracy Miller had already spent hours reading and reviewing bills, after arriving home the previous evening past 7 p.m. She felt prepared to vote — or so she thought.

Frequently, her days are meticulously planned, only to be upended when last-minute substitute bills are introduced.

“We’ll be on the floor, and there’s a substitute that just barely dropped,” Miller said with one week left in the legislative term. “I’m practically trying to read it and figure out if it made it better. That’s been the biggest surprise is the lack of time to know what you’re voting on.”

So much for planning and organization? Not entirely.

Before the session began, Miller contacted more than 1,400 constituents to gather their opinions on key issues and tracked their responses. She also dedicated hours to engaging with the people in District 45, reading and responding to emails.

“I looked at a lot during the session, so I knew what my people are thinking,” Miller said, adding she had “hundreds and hundreds of emails from people during the session, as well as text messages, phone calls and people who have come up to the capitol to visit with me.”

That feedback helped her make decisions about more than 500 bills which were passed in the 45-day legislative session. It, along with upholding her campaign and lifelong commitment to education, also propelled her to introduce several bills this session.

The former Jordan School District Board of Education president’s first bill, HB184, School Trust Land Amendments, aims to streamline the School LAND Trust Program by shifting responsibilities and enhancing transparency.

“It clarifies the responsibilities of the School Children’s Trust section at the Utah State Board of Education which is responsible for providing training and monitoring the compliance checks, so it provides more resources so they can provide better training to schools and LEAs (local educational agency). It makes sure the trust funds are all used correctly and the program is maintained with fidelity. We’ve seen huge growth in the trust fund in the past five or six years, and it’s an important source of funding for the goals and at each school, there are community councils with a majority of parents on them, they’re deciding how to spend that money. However, there’s turnover in school community council every year because it is a parent run program. So, there is a need for more training,” she said.

Miller introduced the bill on Jan. 31, ten days after the session opened. It passed on Feb. 24 and, as of early March, was awaiting the governor’s signature. She collaborated with a policy analyst to draft the bill before the session began.

“It was exciting and it’s quite a process to get it passed,” she said. “I was nervous introducing the bill. I hoped I said the right thing.” 

Miller also introduced HB76, Public Education Revisions, which amends provisions and programs within the public education system.

“There were revisions from bills that have passed in past years which when they try to implement them, they found things were written in law, which aren’t working. So my bill was to clarify some of those, like one on toilet training. The law that was passed last year said a child has to be potty trained to start kindergarten unless it’s a student with a disability or IEP and those exceptions the LEA works out. But we changed the word kindergarten to public school because there were people enrolling their children in first grade and second grade who weren’t potty trained, but the law just says you have to be potty trained to start kindergarten,” she said.

A part of her bill addressed school fees, but Rep. Mark Strong introduced B344, which passed unanimously in both the House and Senate, superseding Miller’s bill.

“Mark’s bill gives the districts the clarification they need on what price (fee) they can charge for fine arts such as band and music and art. A lot of parents worried these programs were going to go away because there wasn’t going to be enough money to sustain them and they’d charge students a fee. This makes it so there has to be a path to graduation where you can take classes or a project without a fee,” she said. 

Miller’s Public Education Revisions bill passed both the House and Senate and was awaiting the governor’s approval.

Another bill she proposed was HB325, Parent Access to Learning Materials Pilot Program, which failed in committee.

“It looked to provide parents the curriculum your kid is studying. It was to close the gap between parents’ perception of what the teacher is doing because most teachers are providing access to their curriculum, but parents aren’t necessarily understanding how to access that. And so the pilot program was to give teachers extra money to take the extra step to increase their communication with parents and provide resources for them to access the curriculum that’s being taught, and be able to engage more with their students. It was a way to increase parent engagement, but I did get a lot of feedback from people who they felt their teachers were doing enough and they were getting the information they needed. That was good feedback,” Miller said.

During the session, she drafted HB268, the Nonresident Online School Amendment, which, as of press time, was under consideration in the Senate.

“When we first started open enrollment in Utah, it allowed students to go to other schools besides the boundary school if it’s outside the district, and there was a provision that said the receiving district could bill a residential district for a portion of the property taxes to cover maintenance and operations and capital expenditures. The idea being if a lot of kids were going to a different district, that district was going to have more capital expenses. A lot has changed in the last 30 years since that rule has been on the book, including the creation of online schools. So this bill just says if the nonresident student is enrolled in an online school then the receiving district won’t bill the residential district for that portion of property taxes which is meant to maintain and operate a facility. I acknowledge it still takes some operating costs to run an online school, but not nearly the amount it takes to operate a comprehensive high school. The reason I introduced it was to reduce administrative costs. There was a lot of reconciling that had to go back and forth between the two districts which took more administrative costs than the amount of money they were getting from it,” Miller said.

Several groups visited the legislature to learn from the freshman lawmaker firsthand.

“I love to see our youth and young adults engaging in the process; I met with student body officers from Jordan School District and the Jr. Women in Business (high school age) group,” she said. “PTA Day at the capitol was great because I was super involved in the PTA and used to come up to PTA Day at the capitol. That’s probably what sparked my whole interest in the legislative process, and now, it was kind of surreal because a few years ago, I was sitting where they were listening to legislators and now, I’m a legislator. It’s still incredibly humbling for me to think that I get to do this. When I look around in the house chamber, it’s humbling. It’s an honor people trust me to represent them and serve them in this capacity. It’s an incredible experience.”

One issue Miller often discussed with students is the use of cell phones in schools.

“Students recognize it’s a problem. They obviously don’t want to give up their phones, but they recognize it’s a distraction. Most are good if they can have it between classes, if that’s what the school district or LEA says,” she said.

The bill, which passed both the House and Senate, requires school districts or LEAs to have a cell phone policy. If no policy is set, the default rule is no phones in classrooms during instruction.

“Many LEAs have already done that. They already worked with their communities, with parents and with teachers and have come up with cell phone policies. So this bill says, ‘Great, you can keep the policy that you’ve come up with.’ It gave the LEAs the flexibility to respond to the needs of their community, but it also sends a strong message to put it away during instruction,” she said.

There are exceptions, including using a phone to respond to an imminent threat, a health or safety emergency, or as part of a student’s IEP or 504 plan, Miller noted.

School safety also was discussed with the amendment of HB40, which defines terms, modifies communication device requirements, revises training requirements of school safety personnel, revised screening and training requirements and more.

“School safety is a big concern; we want to know our kids are safe. One thing the bill this year added was studying recommendations for cybersecurity. Eventually, the school security task force will move beyond fiscal safety and disciple safety, but this bill just is to start studying that issue,” she said.

Miller keeps her constituents informed through a weekly newsletter.

“The biggest thing is bills change, and I may be definitely opposed to it with a lot of negative feedback from my people on it, then it’ll be substituted and substituted again and again, and it will end up in a place where this is a good bill, and I can support it,” she said. “I worry my constituents don’t know how the bill has changed and addressed all their concerns.

“I’ve learned a great deal starting from my first day when I just kept laughing because I was going out the wrong door and getting lost. All the security guards were probably sitting up in some big room watching me and laughing. I’ve learned that even through this process; to address it with patience and a willingness to give others the benefit of the doubt,” she said.

With that, Miller is productive in the demanding environment.

“It’s a good process,” she said. “I know it seems crazy and if you’re just reading the headlines in the paper, you’re not getting the whole story.” λ