TIFFIN, Ohio — The Ohio Education Association has endorsed Democrat Aaron Jones in the race for Ohio House District 88, the campaign announced Friday, delivering the Tiffin city councilman the backing of the state’s largest educators union in a two-county district where public school funding has become a central campaign issue.

OEA represents roughly 120,000 teachers, education support professionals and higher education faculty across Ohio, including educators in the public districts serving Seneca and Sandusky counties. According to the campaign, the association notified Jones in a letter from OEA President Jeff Wensing, a Parma City Schools math teacher elected to lead the union in 2025. The endorsement followed a review by an OEA screening committee of Jones’s written responses on public education issues.

The union’s endorsement process runs through its members rather than its officers. Candidates seeking OEA’s backing complete a written questionnaire covering school funding, employee rights, retirement and privatization, and are screened by committees made up of members from the local associations in the district.

The endorsement makes Jones the choice of both of Ohio’s major teachers organizations. The Ohio Federation of Teachers endorsed his campaign in June, in a letter from OFT President Melissa Cropper.

“I’m a Clyde High School graduate, and the people who taught me set me up for everything that came after,” Jones said in the announcement. “The teachers and support staff in this district are folks I know by name. When they tell me what’s happening in their buildings, I listen. Having them behind this campaign matters to me.”

Jones has made public school funding a central issue of his campaign, tying decisions made at the Statehouse to local classrooms and local tax bills.

“Those decisions get made in Columbus, but they show up here,” Jones said. “They show up in classrooms, and they show up on property tax bills. I want the people making them to hear from the folks doing the work.”

A district where school funding is already on the ballot

Jones faces three-term Republican Rep. Gary Click of Vickery in the Nov. 3 general election. TiffinOhio.net has reported that Click cosponsored House Bill 186 and voted for House Bill 129 — two measures signed into law that are projected to cost Tiffin City Schools roughly $1.2 million a year beginning in tax year 2026 — and that he has since introduced House Bill 420, which would force all continuing property tax levies in Ohio to expire after 2029.

District 88 has long been considered safe Republican territory, but Click emerged from his May 5 primary severely bruised. He defeated challenger Eric Watson by fewer than 600 votes, 6,859 to 6,260, or 52.28 percent to 47.72 percent, according to returns from the Sandusky and Seneca county boards of elections. Click carried his home county of Sandusky but lost Seneca County — where Jones lives and was elected — and Watson declined to endorse him afterward.

Labor and veterans backing

The OEA endorsement adds to a list that already included organized labor. The United Auto Workers endorsed Jones in July through the executive committee of the UAW Ohio State CAP Council, on the recommendation of the Fostoria Area UAW Community Action Program, which represents members in Seneca County. VoteVets, which backs Democratic veterans running for office, is also listed among the campaign’s endorsements.

Jones, a 1991 graduate of Clyde High School, served four years as an Airborne Infantryman with the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment — The Old Guard — in Washington, D.C. He has represented Tiffin’s 1st Ward on City Council since 2024. He and his wife, Tracy, live in Tiffin and have four grandchildren.

He has worked for more than 20 years as a production supervisor at JVIS USA (formerly Toledo Molding & Die), the Tiffin auto parts plant on North Maule Road.

The campaign says it does not accept corporate PAC money. More information is available at jonesforohio.com.