Worthington begins districtwide rollout of CKLA ELA curriculum, staff say

Worthington Schools has begun implementing a new English language arts curriculum, the Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) program, Director of Elementary Education Rob Messenheimer said during a Worth the Journey podcast interview. Messenheimer credited the district’s ELA coordinator, Steve Griffin, and the AAPL team with preparing teachers for the change: “Steve Griffin, our ELA coordinator, has done an excellent job along with our AAPL team in kinda setting the stage and making sure that we have everything in place to help our teachers be successful with that.” Messenheimer said teachers have “embraced that curriculum” despite the challenges of a major change. He described the district’s belief that the curriculum will “have a positive impact for all of our kids when we think about, reading and writing in English language arts.” District officials described the rollout as a major instructional lift for the year and emphasized training and teacher support but did not provide specifics on evaluation metrics, timelines for assessments of student outcomes, or detailed budget figures during the podcast. The implementation is part of the elementary leadership agenda for the school year; Messenheimer said the principal team and instructional staff are collaborating on supports to help teachers adapt to the new materials.