Jumpstart

Jumpstart – Children First

As part of Jumpstart’s mission to ensure children enter kindergarten prepared to succeed, members work to provide high-quality services to children through Jumpstart classroom service and planning. Jumpstart provides members with the training, coaching, and support to ensure that all of Jumpstart’s activities provide children with high-quality, developmentally appropriate experiences and supportive interactions with well-trained adults.

Program Details

Jumpstart is a national early education organization working toward the day every child in America enters kindergarten prepared to succeed. We provide language, literacy, and social-emotional programming for preschool children from under-resourced communities and promote quality early learning for all children. Join us to work toward the day every child in America enters kindergarten prepared to succeed. Learn more at www.jstart.org.

Application Process

Students first apply via JobX, Duke’s student employment platform
Students submit a Jumpstart online application form, either as new or returning members.
Jumpstart program staff interview applicants who pass the initial screening.
During the interview, applicants are asked to bring documentation to confirm federal work-study eligibility if applicable.
If offered a position, Jumpstart Corps members begin their criminal history background checks.
Jumpstart Corps members attend an orientation, workshops, and trainings before beginning their sessions.

Jumpstart Corps Members

Duke Jumpstart members have the unique opportunity to inspire young children to learn, serve in a local community, collaborate with others on a team, and build professional skills. All members receive high quality training to help them implement Jumpstart’s outcome-based program, promote children’s school success, and build family engagement.

Community Partnerships

Jumpstart at Duke appreciates the ongoing support and collaboration our program partners provide to make the Jumpstart program work. As we work toward kindergarten readiness for the children we serve, we also work to increase our program partners’ capacity to provide high-quality services to children and families. This happens through Jumpstart sessions and individual classroom service.

Improving Academic Gains & Kindergarten Readiness for Young Children

Jumpstart recognizes the early years of children’s lives as a critical time for language and literacy development. Much of the development that takes place during this stage determines children’s success in kindergarten and beyond. We choose to leverage our resources, in the form of a proven supplemental curriculum and relationships with dedicated adults, to impact children who are 36 to 59 months of age at the beginning of the school year.

Family Engagement

Jumpstart recognizes that families are children’s first and most important teachers. Jumpstart’s family involvement approach is based on two key components: ongoing, consistent communication and the Jumpstart-home learning connection. Jumpstart uses ongoing, consistent communication to build families’ knowledge of Jumpstart and to inform them of their children’s interests and accomplishments in Jumpstart sessions. Jumpstart also strives to build connections between the Jumpstart session and children’s learning at home by providing families with resources and ideas.

Pipeline of Champions: Corps Members

Jumpstart engages dedicated, trained adults through yearlong relationships and consistent delivery of Jumpstart sessions in program partner classrooms. The majority of Corps members nationwide are students at higher education partner campuses like Duke University. While Corps members serve for a minimum of one academic year, Jumpstart provides them with experience in classrooms and communities that increase early childhood knowledge and builds awareness of community and social issues that impact young children, fostering a pipeline of future educators and champions of early childhood education.

How to Get Involved

Join Duke’s Chapter of Jumpstart to teach, learn, and inspire.

Whether you’re interested in becoming a teacher, looking for a federal work study opportunity, gaining valuable professional skills to better your career, or simply love spending time with children, Jumpstart is a great way to give to your community and make a lasting impact.

Gain professional experience working directly with children and teachers in preschool
Support children’s learning through a research-based curriculum and increasing children’s kindergarten readiness
Receive ongoing training and support

Join as an AmeriCorps member to receive a Segal Education Award. Must be able to work 12.5 hours a week to be eligible. Learn more about the Segal Education Award!

Federal Work Study Compensation

Undergraduate students: $15.00/hour
Graduate students: $17.00/hour

Program Staff

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Teach. Learn. Inspire.

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Corps members are the heart of Jumpstart. Each school year, we recruit and train over 3,800 college students to implement the Jumpstart program in preschool classrooms where the need is highest in order to help prepare our children for kindergarten.

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