What is Jumpstart?
Jumpstart's mission is simple yet significant: to engage young people in service to work toward the day every child in America enters school prepared to succeed. Jumpstart was founded by college students in 1993 at Yale University and now its work is carried out by thousands of students across the country, including right here at the Claremont Colleges.
Jumpstart recruits, trains, and supervises college students to work with Head Start and other early childhood programs in low-income neighborhoods to provide one-to-one attention to young children struggling in preschool. Through our cutting-edge, literacy-focused curriculum we serve children in high risk areas to work to close the achievement gap in education.
Jumpstart has grown into a national movement that invests in building school success for young children; inspires college students to become future teachers and leaders in education; and involves families and communities in their child's learning experiences. Through these three program areas — school success, family involvement and future teachers — Jumpstart creates a nurturing environment for children and strives for equality in access to high-quality education.
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What We Do
Claremont College students can work or volunteer with Jumpstart in a variety of capacities. Corps Members work in teams of 5-7 students, spending about 8-10 hours in the preschool classroom in both Jumpstart Sessions and Classroom Assistance Time (CAT). Corps Members develop close one-to-one relationships with preschool students, their families and their classroom teachers.
Outside of the classroom, Corps Members engage in a team planning meetings and a training program designed to educate them on the essentials of early education, child development, teaching skills; college students learn how to manage a productive and enriching classroom. Corps members also work closely with their partner schools and teachers to create and enrich community-building and family involvement events at the preschool.
Jumpstart Claremont currently partners with several local preschools: Foundation Head Start in La Verne, Easter Seals Child Development Center in Upland, Foundation Head Start in San Dimas and the Pomona Unified School District.
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The Need
Today, more than 6 million American children under the age of six live in poverty. More than ever before in our nation's history, children are entering school lacking basic school readiness skills - language and literacy, social, and initiative skills. In the Carnegie Foundation's Starting Points publication, teachers reported 35 percent of American kindergarten children arrive at school unprepared to learn. These statistics are even more alarming for children from low-income families: Children from low-income neighborhoods start kindergarten 60% behind their wealthier peers. Since these early inequalities persist and increase with time, a child's performance in preschool is directly linked to success later in his or her school career influencing drop-out rates, crime rates and unemployment.
The need for Jumpstart is tremendous among young children, particularly those living in low-income communities. Many lower income children, especially those living in high poverty urban neighborhoods, are ready to learn, but they are not ready to succeed in school. By the time they are in first grade, children in low-income families have gained 5,000 word vocabularies. In contrast, children from more affluent families enter school with 20,000 word vocabularies. The result is that many young children enter poised for failure before their school career has even begun.
As an early childhood development program Jumpstart seeks to address these challenges. One of the fastest-growing nonprofits in the country, Jumpstart provides a high-quality, comprehensive training and curriculum focused on the development of children, their families, and the university students who serve with this national organization as AmeriCorps members.
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Jumpstart Today
Jumpstart has grown from a campus-based program to a national education leader. Since 1993, Jumpstart has trained more than 20,000 college students and served more than 90,000 children across the country. This year, nearly 1,600 college students are participating in Jumpstart on 50 different higher education campuses. And Jumpstart continues to grow every year through new partnerships with colleges and universities across the country.
Learn more about Jumpstart Claremont.
Join Jumpstart Claremont!
To apply for the program or if you have any questions about volunteer or employment opportunities with Jumpstart Claremont please contact the Jumpstart Site Manager, Deborah Lieberman, at 909.607.9290.
To apply for the program or if you have any questions about volunteer or employment opportunities with Jumpstart Claremont please contact the Jumpstart Site Manager:
Deborah Lieberman at (909) 607-9290 or deborahL@pitzer.edu