Roosevelt Partnering with Jumpstart
Providing Service Opportunities for RU Students
College of Education

Jumpstart is a national nonprofit organization that engages young people in service to work toward the day every child in America enters school prepared to succeed. To this end, Jumpstart trains and supports college students to serve as part-time members of the national service movement, working directly with young children and their families to build skills crucial to school success.

Jumpstart focuses on building School Success for young children by developing their early language, literacy, social and initiative skills; encouraging strong family involvement to help families support children’s learning; and training college students to be leaders in early childhood education. Since its founding in 1993, Jumpstart has grown from a campus-based service program to a national non-profit that will engage more than 3500 college students in 67 communities in the coming year. Roosevelt University is proud to be partnered with the Jumpstart program which is currently the largest Serve-Study and the largest part-time AmeriCorps program in the country. Jumpstart mission – to work toward the day every child in America enters school prepared to succeed – drives an aggressive growth plan aimed at serving more children and families each year while simultaneously increasing the integrity and quality of each existing program.

Jumpstart partnered with Roosevelt University in the fall of 2003.  Students mentor 3 to 5 year old children from low-income families within the City of Chicago. Roosevelt University is partnered with several Catholic Charities locations and Chicago Public Schools in Head Start and State-Pre-k classrooms.

Part of Roosevelt University’s mission is to contribute to the creation of a more humane and just society. President Charles Middleton has said, "The Jumpstart program coincides with this commitment by providing us a focused approach to community service, helping to involve our students with the success of children and to instill in them a sense of civic purpose and involvement."

This program is a university wide program initiated through the College of Education. Staff and faculty throughout the university have identified and encouraged students, interested in becoming involved with the community in the Chicago Metropolitan area, to consider joining Jumpstart as a Corps member. Presently, 30 Roosevelt students are involved in this program and the number continues to grow. Corps Members devote 300 hours throughout the academic school year (about 12 – 14 hours/week) at their selected Head Start or Early Childhood program. The student’s weekly schedule, during the school year, includes working one-on-one with their Jumpstart partner child and devoting at least 4-6 hours of classroom assistance in the Jumpstart child’s classroom. There is one team leader for every eight to ten Corps members. The role of the team leader is to prepare Corps members to provide educational activities to young children and families by planning and implementing effective Jumpstart sessions, facilitating team meetings, and coaching Corps members to use developmentally appropriate practices with young children. Jumpstart has also paired with Pearson Publishers and has created a Pearson Teacher Fellowship hoping to inspire graduating Jumpstart Corps members to enter the field of early education by becoming teachers in Head Start and other early learning centers.

This is a marvelous opportunity for students, throughout the university, regardless of their major, to embark on a community service project and reap the benefits of giving. Students or faculty interested in obtaining further information about the Jumpstart Program at Roosevelt can contact Renita T. Johnson, Roosevelt University Jumpstart Site Manager, in the Gage Building Room 211A at 312-853-3927 or by e-mail at rtjohnson@roosevelt.edu or Jumpstart’s website at http://www.jstart.org for general information and to electronically submit an application.

College of Education