FREE NOVA Community College Classes; Act Now to Allow Homeschoolers

On Wednesday, April 15, a new program was announced by Northern Virginia Community College that may provide a valuable benefit to homeschooled students…or Not. The NOVA JumpStart program allows rising or current high school Seniors to take one or two for-credit NOVA college classes this summer for FREE (a value of $561 per class) from among a list of six 100-level classes. This program is being funded by federal CARES Act stimulus money.

So far, free JumpStart classes are for “eligible” Northern Virginia rising seniors and graduating seniors. A call to the JumpStart office and a letter that went to faculty Wednesday indicate that they are opening this to students enrolled in “partner” schools, i.e., public schools and select private schools. If we do not act at once, this will be another opportunity whose doors are closed to homeschoolers.

The administering office has indicated that they will be publishing FAQs which will answer the question about homeschoolers’ eligibility. Before that determination is published, I encourage homeschool families of teens to e-mail the program and NOVA president to let them know of your interest and your demand to be included in this taxpayer funded program!

1. Send an e-mail to: JumpStart@nvcc.edu, akress@nvcc.edu, PresidentsOffice@nvcc.edu

2. Include “JumpStart Program for Homeschoolers” or similar in the subject line

3. In the body of your e-mail, be sure to include pertinent details such as:

JumpStart should be available to homeschooled seniors and rising seniors.

Homeschool families are US taxpayers and should have equal access to federal government’s stimulus funding which is paying for the JumpStart Program.

Homeschool families in Virginia are also taxpayers whose state taxes fund the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) and thus Northern Virginia Community College.

Homeschooled high school students have been equally as affected as public school students by statewide closures and widespread cancellation of their classes and programs.

Please forward this to anyone else you know who is homeschooling juniors or seniors and who might be interested in taking advantage of FREE for-credit college classes that are funded by federal tax dollars during this year’s COVID-19 crisis.

Read a news article on the new program and an excerpt of NOVA President, Dr. Anne Kress’s letter below:

——— Forwarded message ———
From: President’s Office
Date: Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 5:41 PM
Subject: NOVA Operations Daily — April 15, 2020
To: Kress, Anne

Dear NOVA Community,

One update below on a new NOVA summer program for high school students: JumpStart. And, with this daily, we’re all halfway through the week!

Sincerely,

Anne

NEW PROGRAM: NOVA JUMPSTART

In this time of uncertainty and financial challenge for our region’s students and their families, NOVA wants to help Northern Virginia rising and current seniors in public and private high schools by offering a summer schedule of tuition-free online college classes: NOVA Jump Start. Qualifying students can take up to two courses. These concurrent enrollment courses have been selected because they fulfill NOVA degree requirements, and we would welcome these students to become new Nighthawks in the fall. The classes also transfer well to other colleges and universities. Plus, in a new collaboration with Amazon Web Services, the Jump Start offerings include an online course in Cloud Computing. Classes will run June 1 through July 15; registration begins May 1. Since we shared the announcement with our school partners yesterday, Loudoun County Public Schools and multiple private schools have already signed on, and we look for more districts to indicate participation in the coming days. The full list of courses is below:

ART 101 History and Appreciation of Art
CST 110 Introduction to Communication
ENG 111 College Composition I
HIS 112 World Civilization II
ITN 257 Cloud Computing: Infrastructure and Services
MTH 154 Quantitative Reasoning