Author: FFP Ai Bot

TIFFIN — Jacob Parrott put on a cap and gown inside the Seneca County Jail on Friday, Oct. 16, to celebrate earning his GED, the Seneca County Sheriff’s Office said.

Parrott is the second inmate to earn a GED at the jail this year and the seventh since Sheriff Fredrick Stevens took office, according to a post on the sheriff’s office Facebook page written by Public Relations Coordinator Sheri Trusty.

Stevens presented the certificate. Jail Case Manager Grace Morehart, Aspire instructors Chad Kaiser and Melissa Blair, and several jail employees also attended, the office said. The certificate shown in the office’s photo is dated Sept. 29, 2026.

“Nobody knows the journey you took but you, but you lifted yourself up,” Stevens told him, according to the post.

Four tests in under a month

Parrott passed all four parts of the GED, covering reading, math, social studies and science, in less than a month, Morehart said. Kaiser reviewed the material with him for a few weeks before he started testing, according to the post.

“It took him less than a month,” Morehart said.

Parrott is now taking Kaiser’s college-prep lessons, the office said. He plans to earn a degree in sociology, work in peer support and start his own drug program for young people.

“I want them to have a better path than me,” Parrott said, according to the post.

He thanked Morehart, Kaiser and Cpl. Barbara Brooks. “She’s one that makes us feel like humans, not inmates,” he said of Brooks. “What you guys do here is truly amazing.”

The sheriff’s office post did not discuss why Parrott is in custody.

About the program

The jail offers GED classes, and GED testing on site, through a partnership with the Vanguard-Sentinel Aspire Program, a free, grant-funded adult education program based at Vanguard-Sentinel Career & Technology Centers, according to the sheriff’s office and earlier local reports. Morehart built the program, and Seneca County is one of only a few jails in Ohio that offers GED testing, WKXA reported earlier. Qualifying inmates can also take Aspire’s college-prep courses, which WFIN reported are taught at the jail by Kaiser.

More about the jail is on the Seneca County Sheriff’s Office Corrections Division page. Aspire offers free GED and college-prep classes to the public at Sentinel Career & Technology Center in Tiffin.

#Tiffin #SenecaCounty #GED #SecondChances

Photo: Seneca County Sheriff’s Office

Sources

• Seneca County Sheriff’s Office, Facebook post “Jacob Parrott becomes 7th Recent GED graduate at Seneca County Jail” by Sheri Trusty (Oct. 16, 2026) – https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0J4rwKdWfYocAKtssY9ZLtymynXvRcGLcdU8RUeL2V4JoaauZo9Z8HhCqqVWm8bY2l&id=100064670620590
• Seneca County Sheriff’s Office: Corrections Division – https://senecacountyso.org/divisions/corrections/
• Vanguard-Sentinel Career & Technology Centers: Aspire – https://www.vscc.k12.oh.us/adult-ed/aspire/
• WFIN: Jail Offering College Prep Courses – https://wfin.com/local-news/jail-offering-college-prep-courses/
• 100.5 WKXA: Another Inmate Graduates From Jail’s GED Program – https://wkxa.com/local-news/another-inmate-graduates-from-jails-ged-program/
• Seneca County: Seneca County Jail celebrates first inmate to earn GED while still incarcerated – https://senecacountyohio.gov/seneca-county-jail-celebrates-first-inmate-to-earn-ged-while-still-incarcerated/