Board delays vote on adopting Core Knowledge middle‑school ELA curriculum

Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Monifa Taylor and staff recommended the board adopt the open‑source Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) program for grades 6–8, but the board voted on May 8 to postpone a final decision after members asked for more information and community representation.

School system officials said the recommendation followed a year‑long review of open‑source and commercial curricula that included 211 detailed evaluations and input from 82 volunteer reviewers representing teachers, administrators, parents and students. Nikki Hazel, the district’s chief academic officer, and Jackie Leitzy, the district’s secondary ELA supervisor, told the board CKLA scored highly for knowledge‑building, text quality, supports for emergent multilingual learners and potential cost savings versus renewing a contract with McGraw Hill StudySync.

The presentation emphasized implementation supports: a multi‑year professional learning plan beginning this spring, summer training sessions for teachers and ongoing coaching during 2025‑26. Staff said the up‑front costs for professional learning and texts would be offset by printing and reusing open materials in future years, projecting about $1.9 million in savings over three years compared with continuing with the prior vendor.

Several board members and public commenters supported adopting a high‑quality curriculum but raised repeated concerns about the selection process and plans for implementation. Board members including Latoya Rivera Oven, Brenda Wolf and Rita Montoya asked for far broader participation by Latino and Black parents and teachers in the evaluation: staff acknowledged the evaluation pool was majority white (73%) and said they would expand outreach and “spot checks” to ensure more representative input before final action.

Members also pressed staff for details about supports and materials for English learners and students with disabilities, and for clarity about how the curriculum addresses writing and access to novels. Hazel and Leitzy said CKLA includes daily integrated writing, multiple full‑length texts per grade and built‑in supports for multilingual learners, but acknowledged implementation issues at the elementary level (where CKLA is already used) and said staff will ensure special educators and ELD teachers have materials and training. They said many negative comments about CKLA centered on website usability and file formats (PDFs), not instructional design, and staff plan to reformat materials for Canvas and district distribution.

Board members also questioned pacing, differentiation (how grade‑level curriculum will be taught to students at different reading levels), summer professional development capacity, the adequacy of summer training slots and whether the district had comparable examples in similarly large, diverse districts. Staff said several Maryland districts use CKLA for middle grades and that ongoing coaching with principals and central office content specialists would be part of fidelity monitoring.

After extended questions and requests for more detail about representation, materials for special populations, implementation plans and a clearer timeline for training, Julie Yang, board president, asked staff to return with additional documentation and outreach results. The board voted unanimously to table the curriculum approval and asked staff to bring the item back at a future meeting so teachers, parents and the district can review more evidence and implementation details.

The board did not adopt CKLA on May 8; the item was placed on the agenda for further review so staff can respond to the concerns raised about stakeholder representation, materials access and implementation fidelity.