Marion City Schools awarded $339,000 state grant
Marion City Schools were awarded a $339,000 Workforce Incentive Program grant Nov. 23 from the Ohio Department of Education to add two new options to the district’s Career Pathways programming: an Electrical pathway along with Information Technology Networking.
The IT and electrical pathways are to launch for the 2022 - 2023 academic year, joining nine preexisting options including business and marketing, engineering, global logistics, health science, manufacturing and construction as offerings for students to participate in the two-year career pathways program.
This development follows the loss of funding for the GEAR UP program earlier this year.
These two new pathways were chosen with the help of the Marion Area Workforce Acceleration Collaborative (MAWAC), who advised the career pathways program that IT and electrical will provide the most opportunity for students given the current job market, Marcia Pitts, College and Career Pathways Supervisor for Marion City Schools, explained.
Pitts added that acquiring the grant money was essential to help offset the costs of the expanded programming.
Pitts was to meet with Jason Hoffman, Vice President of Buckeye Educational Systems, a career-tech program supplier, this week to begin planning for what each pathway will need before its start in the fall of 2022. The company works with schools across Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky to meet the increased need for technology education.
Career Pathways combines academic and technical content to prepare students for diverse options after high school graduation. The program offers students the opportunity to earn dual credit and work toward industry-recognized credentials in each field, giving students more available options as they process life after high school.
“The program isn’t a one-way road into the pathways,” Pitts said. “Students can get higher-paying jobs while going to school if they decide to pursue that. It’s not a dead end with their chosen pathway. This is providing them with options.”
Marion City Schools strives to align its programming with the Ohio Department of Education’s 5-year Strategic Plan for Education which launched in 2019, a movement focused on helping each student see the relevance in his or her learning and have opportunities to be exposed to practical, real-world work settings.
This marks the district’s effort to allow students to begin defining their futures post-graduation, whether through further education, military service or starting a career.
“This grant will provide even more opportunities to our students to graduate high school with industry-recognized credentials and propel them toward their desired career,” Superintendent Ron Iarussi said in a release.