Marlington reports early gains from new K–5 literacy program; high school to offer college-credit engineering pathway

Marlington Local School District curriculum director Renee Kaley told the school board on March 13 that the district’s K–5 rollout of the Benchmark Advance literacy program has produced early improvements in phonics, vocabulary and writing and that the administration will ask the board in April to adopt Benchmark Advance for sixth grade.

Kaley said the district bought Benchmark Advance along with professional learning and coaching and has used grade-level collaboration and on-site coaching since September. “Our overall goal was to improve our literacy outcomes and instructional consistency across not only all grade levels, but across all buildings as well,” Kaley said. She added that early fall-to-winter assessment data show fewer students needing urgent intervention in K–2 phonics and stronger comprehension and writing in grades 3–5.

The district reported teachers are using annotated text and more rigorous vocabulary instruction; Kaley said even students who previously struggled are producing longer, multi-paragraph writing. “The amount of writing and the quality of writing we are seeing just in this short period of time from September to March is incredible,” she said. Kaley also acknowledged implementation challenges, especially pacing and materials management, and said the district will continue targeted professional development and data analysis.

Kaley said Marlington is piloting Benchmark with current sixth-grade teachers and will ask the board in April to adopt Benchmark Advance for grade 6 to create a smoother curricular bridge between elementary and middle school.

At the high school, Kaley described a restructured engineering career-technical pathway led by teacher Mr. Denny and the counseling team. The district has partnered with the University of Mount Union to offer a College Credit Plus (CCP) option for the junior-level engineering course; Marlington would be the first high school in Ohio to offer that specific CCP engineering option through Mount Union, Kaley said. “We are going to be the first school in the state of Ohio to offer CCP with the engineering course,” she said.

Kaley said the program’s target enrollment is 15–25 students and that, for next year, 15 combined Marlington and Alliance students had signed up so far. “I believe we have 15 juniors or current sophomores signed up to take it next year, which that's our sweet spot. We want to be between 15 and 25 students,” she told the board.

The district also described efforts to strengthen industry partnerships and student work-based learning with local manufacturers including Morgan Engineering and SCS, and to seek external funding for equipment such as robotics arms and CNC mills. Kaley said Marlington applied for an advanced-manufacturing grant that would have funded such equipment but was not awarded funds. “We applied… we didn't get it,” she said. The district will continue to pursue grants and local partnerships to support the pathway.

The board voted that evening to approve updates to the high school program of studies, which include the engineering changes and other item-level updates described by Kaley. (See “Votes at a glance” for the vote tally.)

The presentation also added nonacademic supports to the program of studies: SchoolLinks — a college-and-career platform — was added to career exploration resources, and new state honors-diploma requirements were incorporated into the document.

Kaley and school leaders emphasized this year is the first full year of K–5 Benchmark implementation and said ongoing coaching and pacing adjustments are priorities as the district refines instruction.

Looking ahead, Kaley said the district will return in April with a formal request for grade-6 adoption of Benchmark Advance and continued updates on the engineering CCP rollout.

Ending: The board approved the program-of-studies updates that incorporate the Benchmark and engineering pathway changes; administrators said they will present the formal grade-6 Benchmark adoption request at the April meeting.