225 Rising Kindergarten Students Served by this Year’s Jump Start to Kindergarten Program
Smart Start of Transylvania County’s (SSTC) 2023 Jump Start to Kindergarten program was held once again this summer in all five local elementary schools (Brevard Academy, Brevard Elementary, Pisgah Forest Elementary, Rosman Elementary, and T.C. Henderson School of Science and Technology.) The annual “day camp” program serves as a gentle on-ramp to kindergarten, allowing students to meet their teachers, school staff, and prospective classmates, while participating in various classroom activities and routines. Given that, for many families, kindergarten marks the first time that their child experiences learning in a formal classroom setting or being away from their family for an extended period of time, Jump Start serves as a crucial yearly program that helps to ease first-day jitters for many little ones, making the transition to elementary school easier for students, parents, and educators.
Jump Start is offered cost-free to families in Transylvania County, ensuring that it is accessible to all rising kindergartners. To sustain the program, SSTC relies on grants and individual donations to fund supplies and teacher wages. We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Lake Toxaway Charities and to St. Philip’s Episcopal Church of Brevard’s Christian Social Concerns and Episcopal Church Women committees for supporting us and the families we serve with generous grants. We are also extremely grateful to all of the individual donors who have helped to make this valuable program a reality and impacted the lives of local children and educators.
This year, we served 225 rising kindergartners, the largest number of students in the history of the Jump Start program. This is a significant number of children given Transylvania’s small size, and this year’s growth in attendance means more children than ever were able to walk into their new school classroom on August 28th with confidence and preparedness to learn. SSTC would be unable to continue to expand the program to serve a larger number of students without the hard work of local educators who are willing to dedicate a portion of their summer vacation to familiarizing children with their new school environment and partnering with local families to ensure they have all the knowledge needed to prepare their child to be socially and academically successful in school. Local NC PreK teacher and Jump Start participant Samantha Jones shares, “With Jump Start kids are able to make friends and gain excitement about the new school year! We can’t wait to learn and grow together!”
SSTC supports pathways to kindergarten readiness throughout the first five years of a child’s life by funding high quality early childhood education programs and actively promoting social and emotional development in young children. Jump Start is a fitting final step in the journey to prepare children for success in K12 schools and a worthy program we plan to continue to support and grow in the years to come. We wish all of this year’s kindergarten students and the educators who support them a safe and healthy school year full of exciting new learning opportunities.
To learn more about Smart Start of Transylvania County and the Jump Start to Kindergarten program, or to donate to the program for the 2024 school year, we invite you to visit smartstarttransylvania.org or to reach out directly to Rebecca Snurr, SSTC’s Early Childhood Education Capacity & Workforce Lead, by email at rebeccasnurr@smartstarttransylvania.org or by phone at (828) 877-3025.
Written by: Aiyanna Lollis and Published by: The Transylvania Times
