September 24, 2026 | Dan Weidman

Montgomery County Educational Service Center and Find Your Grind Expand Partnership to Advance Future Readiness Across the Region

Regional initiative gives middle and high schools across Montgomery County a simple way to start student-centered career exploration, backed by hands-on implementation support from MCESC.

DAYTON, Ohio — September, 24 2026: The Montgomery County Educational Service Center (MCESC) and Find Your Grind today announced an expanded partnership through a new regional Future Ready Learning Initiative. The initiative helps school districts prepare students for the future of work while supporting Ohio’s evolving college and career readiness priorities.

Through MCESC, Montgomery County districts get a streamlined pathway to Find Your Grind’s Future Ready platform, paired with regional leadership, implementation support, and professional learning. The partnership builds on a multi-year relationship rooted in a shared belief: students deserve more than traditional career exploration. They deserve the chance to discover who they are and the resources to design the future they want.

Ohio is expanding its focus on middle school career exploration, and lawmakers are considering Senate Bill 328, which would set new career exploration and career planning expectations for grades 6 through 8. This partnership gives Montgomery County districts a regional head start, helping middle school students build self-awareness, explore career possibilities, develop durable skills, and make more informed decisions about high school pathways.

Preparing students for tomorrow’s workforce isn’t just about matching them to a job title on a list. It’s about helping them understand their unique strengths and potential,” said Tom Jenkins, Director of Career Connected Learning and Workforce at MCESC. “By expanding our partnership with Find Your Grind, we are giving our districts an adaptable, highly engaging tool that meets students where they are, helps them discover who they want to become, and directly connects classroom learning to our regional workforce pathways.

The expanded partnership reflects years of collaboration. Since first partnering with Find Your Grind, MCESC has championed approaches to student success centered on identity development, social-emotional learning, and future readiness. Superintendent Shannon Cox has long emphasized that preparing students for the future means helping them envision the life they want to build, not simply asking them what job they want when they grow up.

Getting Started: Career Exploration That Meets Every Student Where They Are

For Montgomery County districts, getting started is simple. Schools can engage students in meaningful career exploration right away through two foundational experiences, the Find Your Grind Lifestyle Assessment and the Explore Engine. Together, they create an accessible entry point for career readiness without a heavy implementation lift.

Start With the Student, Not the Career

Rather than assessing students and matching them to a career, Find Your Grind starts with a more relevant question: Who are you, and how do you want to live?

The Find Your Grind Lifestyle Assessment helps students identify a Lifestyle based on their interests and personal strengths, building self-awareness through reflection and self-discovery. The goal isn’t to assign a career from a single assessment. It’s to give students a starting point for understanding who they are today, who they may want to become, and the possibilities worth exploring.

Turn Curiosity Into Exploration

From there, students enter Explore, an on-demand environment where they follow their curiosity across interconnected Lifestyles, Career Clusters, Careers, Mentors, and Skills.

Instead of static career profiles or a single “best-fit” occupation, students get bite-sized, interactive ways to discover new possibilities and decide where to go deeper. Real mentor stories make those possibilities feel human, and the connections between careers, lifestyles, and skills show students how what they’re discovering relates to their own future.

Bite-Sized Experiences That Build Toward a Personalized Plan

Every interaction is designed to move students forward through a simple progression:

DISCOVER → GO DEEPER → APPLY

Students can begin with an approachable introduction, video, mentor story, skill, workplace, or career. When something sparks their interest, they can go deeper, connecting what they’re learning to their strengths, interests, and aspirations. Ultimately, exploration moves toward action as students reflect, identify next steps, and begin developing plans for what they want to pursue next.

Over time, these seemingly small interactions become something much bigger: a personalized, student-driven picture of who they are, what’s possible for them, and where they may want to go next, captured through their My Plan. 

An Easy First Step. A Foundation for What’s Next.

Districts don’t have to wait for a new course, semester, or major curriculum rollout to begin.

Find Your Grind provides an immediate starting point for engaging all students in career exploration while building a foundation that schools can expand through advisory, counseling, career-readiness programming, classroom instruction, and deeper Future Ready learning experiences.

The impact: Students learn how to explore, adapt, and own their path.

Through the Future Ready Learning Initiative, Montgomery County districts will have expanded access to all Find Your Grind experiences:

• Future Ready Students: A comprehensive instructional curriculum for grades 6–12 focused on self-discovery, career exploration, durable skills, and future planning.
• Future Pro: Industry exploration experiences and competency-based microcredentials aligned to high-demand career pathways.
• Future Balance: Student well-being insights that help educators better understand engagement and support student success.
• Professional Learning: Ongoing educator training and implementation support delivered in partnership with MCESC.
• Regional Implementation Support: Coordinated planning, customer success, and strategic leadership to ensure successful district implementation.

Rather than functioning as a traditional purchasing agreement, the initiative establishes MCESC as a regional innovation partner, helping districts identify the right implementation model, connect future-ready learning to local workforce priorities, and accelerate adoption through collaborative professional learning and shared best practices.

This collaboration positions MCESC to provide direct, hands-on regional implementation support,” said Tom Jenkins, Director of Career Connected Learning and Workforce at MCESC. “We are helping our district leaders and educators integrate these career-readiness tools seamlessly into their existing curriculum so that every student across Montgomery County can build a meaningful, personalized path forward.

This partnership also reinforces Find Your Grind’s commitment to Ohio’s educational priorities, with instructional content that brings career awareness, social-emotional learning, Portrait of a Graduate competencies, and durable skills into the everyday student experience.

Together, Find Your Grind and MCESC are building a regional model that supports educators, strengthens district implementation, and helps every student start designing a future they’re excited to pursue.

See What Your First Step Could Look Like

Whether you lead a Montgomery County district ready to get started or you’re an Ohio school leader planning for middle school career exploration, the fastest way to see Find Your Grind in action is a conversation with our Ohio team.

Meet with Ashley, Find Your Grind’s Ohio Account Executive, for a walkthrough of the Lifestyle Assessment and Explore, and a practical plan for launching career exploration in your schools this year.

About Montgomery County Educational Service Center

The Montgomery County Educational Service Center serves 16 local school districts and more than 140 educational entities, providing innovative educational services, instructional support, and professional learning that improve outcomes for students and educators across Ohio.

About Find Your Grind

Find Your Grind is a Future Ready learning platform helping middle and high school students discover who they are before deciding what they want to become. Through a lifestyle-first curriculum, career-connected learning, industry exploration, and student well-being insights, Find Your Grind empowers schools to prepare every learner for success in school, career, and life.