Isabella Project
Highest-Quality Early Childhood Education Initiative
About the Isabella Project
In Ventura County, over 22,000 children are between ages 3 and 4, qualifying them for early childhood education. Unfortunately, approximately 12,000 of these children are unable to gain access to this vital and life-changing opportunity. Together, we can fix this!
The challenges are many, and include:
- Availability of appropriate facilities located throughout the county.
- Workforce conditions: is the system capable of hiring a relatively large number of qualified teachers, trainers and other specialists?
- Transportation for children from their homes to educational centers located throughout the county.
- Administrative operations that can manage the programs from either a centralized or decentralized system.
- Creation of a parental support system.
As you can see, the variety and complexity of issues currently preventing access to highest-quality early childhood education will take all of us working together to solve. There are areas in our own community where the likelihood of undergoing adverse early childhood experiences is extremely high. We see a pattern of ZIP codes that have a prevalence of poverty, food insecurity, single parent households experiencing daily childcare crises, and a lack of affordable housing. These risks expose children to an over 90% likelihood of one or more delays in their cognitive, language, or emotional development.
One of these ZIP codes is our beloved Santa Paula. Santa Paula is a prime example for demonstrating how the establishment of a high-quality early childhood education system can be paid through the existing government preschooling entitlements, combined with philanthropy. We believe that Santa Paula is uniquely positioned to be the first community in California where 100% of all children have access to full-time, highest-quality early childhood education opportunities, and that this pilot program will be the first phase of a larger effort so that all children in Ventura County are able to access the most effective and promising anti-poverty strategy – education!
Your community foundation is going all in to ensure the earliest possible interventions to help young children grow and thrive and to build strong, nurturing families.
The "Isabella Project" (or "Proyecto Isabella" in our Spanish-speaking community) is the name of the pilot project to make highest-quality early childhood education available to 100% of 0- to 5-year-olds in Santa Paula. This group is comprised of over 120 community partners from across Ventura County and sectors ranging from higher education to child care to mental healthcare and more. The project aims to serve as a model to be replicated throughout Ventura County.
Make Ventura County a better place to live
Make Ventura County a better place to live
The Isabella Project newsletter provides updates on the awesome work of the Santa Paula Early Childhood Education Steering Committee, as well as community and policy updates regarding local education.
Newsletter Sign-Up
Isabella Project Lunch & Learns
Join us for our Isabella Project Lunch & Learns, featuring guest speakers from the Isabella Project Steering Committee. These calls are available to all community members to hear about the awesome work happening in Santa Paula to promote highest-quality early childhood education.
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| Date | Guest speaker & topic | Links (English) | Links (Spanish) |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 27, 2026 | |||
| June 25, 2026 | |||
| May 28, 2026 | |||
| March 26, 2026 | |||
| September 26, 2025 | |||
| July 18, 2025 | |||
| May 23, 2025 | |||
| March 28, 2025 | |||
| February 28, 2025 | |||
| October 25, 2024 | |||
| September 27, 2024 | |||
| August 30, 2024 | |||
| July 26, 2024 | |||
| June 28, 2024 | |||
| May 31, 2024 | |||
| April 26, 2024 | |||
| February 23, 2024 | |||
| September 20, 2023 | |||
| August 16, 2023 | |||
| July 19, 2023 | |||
| June 21, 2023 | |||
| May 17, 2023 | |||
| March 15, 2023 | |||
| February 8, 2023 |
Creating opportunities, one child at a time