Marion City Schools to offer Micro Farming Career Pathway through $200,000 grant

Sophia Veneziano, Marion Star
·1 min read
The front of Marion Harding High School is shown. Three school board candidates will run for two seats Nov. 2, 2021.
The front of Marion Harding High School is shown. Three school board candidates will run for two seats Nov. 2, 2021.

Marion City Schools announced Thursday the district's Career Pathways Program was awarded a $200,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Education to launch a new career pathway with community impact: micro farming.

With the support of the $200,000 Equity for Each grant, the Agriculture: Micro Farming pathway will be available for students beginning in the 2022 - 2023 academic year.

Following a $339,000 grant awarded in December from the Ohio Department of Education for two new career pathways, an Electrical pathway along with Information Technology Networking, this Equity for Each grant represents further investment from the state in career prep for Marion City Schools' students.

What makes this pathway unique, however, is the community impact and collaboration that are to result from the educational instruction.

Micro Farming is small-scale, high-yield farming conducted in urban or suburban areas where there might be a lack of resources. Being sustainably-minded, the program will launch in partnership with The Ohio State University at Marion to provide the farm's yield to the Marion community.

Superintendent Dr. Ron larussi expressed the district's gratitude for the grant funding and goals for the program in a release Thursday.

“We are grateful to receive another grant from ODE to continue to evolve our pathways program,” Iarussi said. “Our goal is to give our students as many options as possible to help further their career education before and after graduation."

Additionally, he added the district's intention is to use the pathway for community impact.

"Micro farming is not only a great way to teach our students the importance of agriculture education, but also being able to use the output of the Micro Farm to impact the community is an added benefit,” Iarussi said.

Story by: Sophia Veneziano (740) 564 - 5243 | sveneziano@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Marion City Schools to offer Micro Farming Career Pathway next year