Brookfield Local School District is joining a program in place at Ashtabula County Technical and Career Center to try and better position students for careers they are interested in.

The Growing Rural Independence Together Project originated with state funding in 2019, and Ashtabula signed on sometime later.

“In just 12 months, the GRIT funding has enabled us to provide more than 800 individuals with the Future Plans Assessment and career coaching, connecting them to training and employment pathways that align with their skills and passions,” said Shaelynn Ballard, special grants manager for Ashtabula County Technical and Career Center, in testimony to the Ohio Senate in 2025.

“More than 200 individuals have received assistance to complete in-demand training such as CDL, CNA, and phlebotomy – with a 90% successful completion rate,” Ballard said. “More than 50 individuals have received critical support services such as transportation, uniforms, and childcare, leading to sustainable employment.”

Brookfield High School students will take a career assessment that “tells them, through a series of questions, what they may be suitable for, as far as professions,” said Brookfield Supt. Toby Gibson.

“Other aspects of it are free summer camps, summer programming, those types of things; right now, I think, they have aeronautics and welding,” Gibson said. Those camps are geared to getting students certified in those disciplines.

While the distance between Brookfield and Ashtabula precludes many Brookfield students from attending these camps in Ashtabula, Brookfield school officials have not ruled out busing students to Ashtabula for short-lived summer programs, Gibson said.

Once Brookfield has finished remodeling the Tiffany’s building, which will house many of its career-oriented programs, there might be an opportunity to host camps in Brookfield, he said.

The Ashtabula program, which is free to Brookfield, differs from the career counseling the Eastern Ohio Educational Service Center offers to Brookfield students in that the Eastern Ohio program, which is not free, is geared more to getting students to graduation and certifying them in industry-recognized credentials, Gibson said.

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