Oct 3, 2025
Across the country, educators are asking the same question: How do we prepare students for a world that keeps changing? It’s a timeless challenge, but one that feels newly pressing in 2025.
And in Utah, the answer is taking shape in classrooms every day.
The state’s Personalized, Competency-Based Learning (PCBL) framework marks a quiet but powerful shift; one that replaces the familiar rhythm of grades and averages with something far more meaningful: learning that’s personal, measurable, and built around mastery.
Utah’s vision for learner-centered education
Utah’s journey starts with the Portrait of a Graduate (POG). It’s a shared promise that every student will leave high school ready to think critically, communicate clearly, and take ownership of their growth; an incredible commitment made by schools. The POG is the vision. The PCBL framework is the path that brings it to life.
The Utah State Board of Education (USBE) didn’t build that path alone, either. It listened. Families, teachers, community members, and partners like KnowledgeWorks and Learner-Centered Collaborative helped design a framework flexible enough to fit local needs yet structured enough to guide change statewide.
Schools like Wasatch County are showing what’s possible, giving students more voice in their learning, building confidence through feedback, and using flexible pacing to keep every learner moving forward. Essentially, it’s learning built on purpose, not points.
Turning vision into action
Utah’s vision didn’t stop at a framework. The state built supports to make this lasting change possible.
Through innovation grants, schools were encouraged to test learner-centered practices and share what they learned. State leaders then used that feedback to refine policies, rewriting seat-time requirements and aligning assessment systems to better reflect growth and mastery. Each step strengthened the next, building a foundation where vision could become everyday practice.
Of course, creating a vision is one thing. Bringing it to life in hundreds of classrooms is another. Utah educators are making that leap every day, and Otus helps them do it with clarity and confidence.
How Otus helps Utah schools bring PCBL to life
Utah’s PCBL framework rests on five essential ideas:
A culture of learning. Learner agency. Demonstrated competency and assessment. Customized supports. Social-emotional learning.
Otus helps bring these ideas to life in classrooms every day through:
- Standards-based grading (SBG): Teachers can see exactly where a student has mastered a standard and where they need more support. Progress becomes visible, not just summarized.
- Demonstrated competency: Student growth unfolds across subjects and over time, creating a record of learning that tells a fuller story.
- Customized supports: Attendance, assessment, and engagement data reveal who needs help early, before gaps widen.
- Learner agency: Students track goals, reflect on growth, and take ownership of their learning path.
- Social-emotional growth: Schools can follow the traits that define Utah’s Portrait of a Graduate — collaboration, empathy, perseverance — alongside academic mastery.
With Otus, educators can turn vision into practice. Instead of juggling multiple tools or relying on instinct alone, they have one place to see every learner clearly and make decisions that move them forward.
Reducing absenteeism and fostering student agency
The PCBL framework recognizes that absenteeism is more than an empty seat. It’s a signal. A measure of engagement, belonging, and access. When students miss class, they lose opportunities to build confidence and practice agency.
Otus helps schools track those signals in real time. Attendance patterns connect directly to performance data, allowing educators to respond with care and consistency. A call home. A check-in. A plan to reconnect. Each step helps students re-engage with their learning and rebuild a sense of ownership that drives growth.
When your students feel seen, supported, and part of their own progress, agency follows.
Empowering Utah’s learners for what’s next
Utah’s work has become a model for others, proof that meaningful change happens when policy meets practice and when everyone, from state leaders to teachers to families, shares a single purpose.
Districts across Utah are already showing what this looks like in action. Through the PCBL framework, education leaders are unifying dozens of improvement efforts under one shared vision for learning. It’s become their umbrella—a way to ensure every program and policy works toward the same goal: helping students demonstrate mastery and growth with purpose.
And this is what empowerment looks like in practice. Learning that builds confidence, honors growth, and prepares students for whatever comes next.
With tools like Otus helping educators make sense of every data point and celebrate every milestone, Utah schools are proving that a future-ready isn’t some distant goal. It’s happening right now.
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