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Utah's public schools could soon get a new state-run pilot program aimed at expanding mental health support for students. The bill creates the three-year School-based Behavioral Health Pilot Program, administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, which would select one or more "implementation partners" — universities or other qualified organizations — to contract with participating school districts or regional education agencies and deliver a tiered system of mental health services, ranging from school-wide screenings, wellbeing surveys, and prevention training up to case management and psychiatric consultation for students with the most intensive needs. Participating schools would need parental consent before providing services to individual students, and the bill also creates a new exception allowing schools to deliver group-based mental health services to multiple students at once during instructional time, as long as every student present has documented parental consent — something current law otherwise does not allow for these types of restricted services. The program would be funded through the state's existing Public Education Economic Stabilization Restricted Account, is set to expire July 1, 2029, and requires the department to report outcomes to lawmakers, including by December 2028 on whether the approach should be expanded statewide.