Izzi's 2025 Year Wrapped
As 2025 comes to a close, we invite you to pause with us and reflect on some of the moments that shaped Izzi Early Education this year. We are deeply proud of the dedication, creativity, and care our team brought to serving more than 600 children and families across San Mateo County. Together, we celebrated meaningful milestones, navigated real challenges, and continued to grow stronger along the way. Below, we’re excited to share a few highlights from the year, and a glimpse of how these experiences are helping prepare Izzi for an even brighter 2026.
We kicked off the year at the Head Start California Annual Education Conference, where we were happy to be in community with our peers while keeping our friends, families, and fellow Head Start programs that were impacted by the LA wildfires in our thoughts and hearts.
Amidst looming federal funding cuts, Izzi mobilized staff, families, and community members to advocate for Head Start: calling local leaders, joining statewide advocacy efforts in Sacramento, and sharing our stories with elected officials through site visits in Redwood City and South San Francisco.
As the new 2025-26 program year started in August into our 42nd year, we officially launched EarlySpark Institute, our teacher training program, to recruit new and local educators in the field, graduating 55 fully trained early child educators. EarlySpark is on track to graduate 40+ more in 2026, directly addressing the early childhood educator workforce shortage impacting San Mateo County.
Then, the news of a federal shutdown drew more eyes on our work to serve the community. We hosted our first major Bay Area news conference with Congressman Kevin Mullin and other community partners to speak out about the national impact in Head Start programs closing.
Amidst all of this uncertainty, we are so proud to report that we are 100% enrolled across all of our program offerings, providing 600 children and their families with high-quality care, educational opportunities, and family engagement services.
We look ahead to 2026 with deep gratitude and renewed purpose. The past year reminded us that even in moments of uncertainty, community, compassion, and collective action can carry us forward. Because of the dedication of our staff, the trust of our families, and the steadfast support of partners like you, Izzi continues to stand strong rooted in our mission and guided by hope for what’s possible.
Thank you for being part of Izzi’s story and for believing in the power of early education to change lives.
Big Wins with Literacy in 2025
In San Mateo County, too many students – especially students from low-income families, who are disproportionately students of color – are currently not meeting this critical benchmark.
42% of the county’s third graders cannot read proficiently, 69% of third graders from low-income families cannot read proficiently (source: The Big Lift). Research shows that promoting literacy skill building from an early age can help combat this gap, and we’re proud to share that this year Izzi celebrated 10 years of collaboration with The Big Lift, a San Mateo County-led effort to improve early literacy. Izzi is the county’s largest Big Lift Partner!
Izzi rolled out numerous literacy initiatives across our classrooms, such as SEEDS of learning, Raising a Reader, and providing literacy-focused professional development for our teachers. We are proud to be advancing our missions of ensuring Izzi children leave our programs kindergarten-ready!
Volunteer Highlights with Izzi
We're proud have have launched an official volunteer program, bringing more community members and corporate groups to our sites! This year, Izzi:
Hosted 13 volunteers events for 45 hours of total community service
Engaged over 400 volunteers from community and corporate partners
Repainted and repaired 150 classroom chairs and shelves
Repurposed over 100 musical instruments out of recycled house items for outdoor play
Packed 220 school readiness bags for Early Head Start
Planted 15 trees at our East Palo Alto and Magnolia Sites
We are so excited about our ongoing volunteer corporate partnership with Bank of America, and look forward to engaging more corporate groups in 2026!
