Who we are

A group of teachers, from varying states around the country, struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic to engage their middle school students with meaningful pedagogy. Their preexisting curriculum, expensive and outdated, was just not flexible and dynamic enough to excite their classes. They had long wanted a change before the pandemic, but now it felt imperative and urgent.

They decided to create a modernized, 21st-century middle school curriculum.

Collectively agreeing they wanted to both excite their students and prepare them for their future academic and workplace challenges, these teachers also wanted a curriculum they would enjoy teaching. Months of emails, Google Docs, group texts, and Zoom meetings later, New World Curriculum was born!

Chuck Schneekloth, a former ELA department head at Castlemont High School (Oakland, CA) with an educational leadership degree from UC Berkeley, brought these teachers together. An educator with experiences in Oregon, California, and New Jersey schools, he worked with this team to bring together three elements in every module: project-based learning of the West Coast, structured, standards-based units of the East Coast, and a national movement toward college and career readiness standards. He is currently a literacy coach at a Title 1 middle school in NJ.