About Us

Little Ivy Academy was founded in 2019 by Lu Jiang, a passionate early childhood educator with a Master's degree in Education from the University of Georgia and over a decade of hands-on experience with young children. Before opening Little Ivy, Lu spent years working in early childhood settings across two countries — observing, studying, and growing more and more convinced that the first six years of a child's life are not a waiting room. They are the classroom.

Her vision was clear from the beginning: create a place where every child is genuinely known — not just managed, but understood. A place where bilingual education is not a bonus feature, but a foundation. A place where families feel like partners, not customers, and where the classroom door is always open to questions, conversation, and real relationship.

What started as a single classroom in Kenmore has grown into two thriving campuses — Kenmore for toddlers aged 1 to 3, and Bothell for preschoolers aged 3 to 6. Each campus is intentionally small: roughly 12 children per cohort, a teacher-to-child ratio that exceeds state requirements, and a culture built around knowing every child by name, by nature, and by need. That intimacy is a deliberate choice — and it shapes everything from how teachers show up each morning to how children carry themselves into kindergarten.

Today, Little Ivy Academy holds a 100% private school placement record — every graduate has been accepted to their target school — and a near-100% re-enrollment rate that speaks not to clever marketing, but to something simpler: families trust us with their children because we take that trust seriously, every single day.