Jumpstart

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.

Jumpstart’s program is designed to ensure high-quality adult-child interactions and meaningful outcomes for children through developmentally appropriate classroom experiences, including depth of focus, a written curriculum supporting adult intentionality, and defined outcomes for children.

Since 1993, Jumpstart has trained more than 45,000 college students and community volunteers to transform the lives of over 100,000 preschool children nationwide; Simmons has been a proud partner of Jumpstart’s since the beginning!! Jumpstart at Simmons is proud to be an AmeriCorps program.

Hear more about Jumpstart through the words of Simmons students, teachers, and families.

You can learn more about Jumpstart (and apply online) by visiting the Jumpstart website.

Jumpstart at Simmons

At Simmons, our AmeriCorps members come from a variety of disciplines and commit to 300 hours throughout the academic year. During these 300 hours, students are assigned to a specific classroom in a Jamaica Plain partner preschool. Two afternoons weekly with a team of 5-6 other Simmons students, AmeriCorps members implement a supplementary early childhood curriculum that includes such elements as reading in small groups (1 AmeriCorps member to 3-4 children) and engaging in activities and explorations tied to a larger theme. Simmons students get to work with the same children throughout the entire academic year in order to build relationships and to see the transformative impact they are having on Boston’s earliest learners.

A dedicated staff member supports students throughout the entirety of their service, including providing comprehensive training and coaching throughout the year to increase each members' ability to work effectively with children. The program also supports the development of leadership skills, teamwork, relationship building, time management, and awareness of pressing social justice issues.

In addition to possibly earning Federal Work Study or a monetary stipend from AmeriCorps, students can potentially earn course credit through their Jumpstart service. We are a service site for some service-learning and field placement requirements, and the site manager is always willing to discuss course credit opportunities with Jumpstart including, but not limited to independent studies, Capstone projects, internships, and 3-D Design Across Diverse Disciplines.

Applications are accepted online. Apply today!

AmeriCorps

AmeriCorps is a network of national service programs that engage Americans of all ages in intensive service to the country. Members commit their time to address critical community needs like increasing academic achievement, mentoring youth, fighting poverty, sustaining national parks, preparing for disasters, and more. Since the program’s founding in 1994, more than 1 million AmeriCorps members have contributed more than 1.4 billion hours in service across America while tackling pressing problems and mobilizing more than 2.3 million volunteers for the organizations they serve.

Learn more about AmeriCorps.

Massachusetts Service Alliance

The AmeriCorps program at Jumpstart at Simmons site is supported by the state commission on service and volunteerism – Massachusetts Service Alliance (MSA). Established in 1991 as a private, nonprofit organization, MSA promotes and supports service and volunteerism by investing public and private resources in community-based organizations that rely upon volunteers and people engaged in service to meet their community's needs.

Learn more about the MSA.