Jumpstart Claremont

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. Founded in 1993 at Yale University, 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 in their child's learning experiences. Through these three program areas — school success, family involvement and future teachers — Jumpstart works to create an environment of life-long learning for children.

Jumpstart Claremont provides programming to four local preschools: Para Los Ninos Preschool in Ontario, Danbury State Preschool, San Antonio Preschool, and Vista Preschool in Claremont.

The School Readiness Problem
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: A 1993 study showed that about 50 percent of all children from low-income families start first grade up to two years behind their peers in preschool skills. Since these early inequalities in skills persist and increase with time, a child's performance in preschool is directly linked to success later in his or her school career.

A Simple Idea
Jumpstart was founded in 1993 at Yale University at the intersection of two national trends: the public need for quality early childhood programs and the emerging national service movement recruiting thousands of college students to community service. Jumpstart connects these trends by recruiting, training, and supervising 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.

Jumpstart Today
Since 1993, Jumpstart has grown from a campus-based program to a national education leader. This year, Jumpstart is serving more than 6,000 children in 44 communities across the country. 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.

For more information about volunteer or employment opportunities with Jumpstart Claremont please contact Karen Magoon, Jumpstart Claremont Coordinator at: (909) 607-9290 or by email . The Jumpstart Office is located in Fletcher 101 on the Pitzer College campus.

www.jstart.org.