Concord High School is experiencing a duck invasion. The birds line the cafeteria coffee bar, rest on teachers’ and administrators’ desks, and adorn the dashboards of students’ cars. There are soccer ducks, ugly sweater ducks, horse ducks and snowman ducks.

Though the rubber animals – an ode to Concord’s “Tidey the Duck” mascot – first infiltrated the high school several years ago, they have multiplied rapidly in recent months.

The mastermind behind the rubber duck explosion is freshman Izzie Boom, a 14-year-old Deerfield resident with a beaming smile and piercing blue eyes. Boom is a member of teacher Kari Zwick’s special education class, which began selling the rubber ducks in an effort to keep the school community connected at the onset of the Covid pandemic in 2020.

Last November, Boom was in math class when the possibility of transforming the duck-selling enterprise into a fundraiser for Rett Syndrome, the neurological condition she has, took hold.

Since then, Boom and her classmates have swarmed the high school in salesperson mode, flipping more than 250 ducks at $1 a piece. Boom’s favorite duck is the rock star – decked out in a hot pink cowboy hat, black sunglasses, and a big gold chain – fitting for a girl who loves Taylor Swift and riding horses.

The fundraiser has raised not only money but also awareness about the rare condition, which affects roughly 9,000 people in the U.S., most of whom are girls, according to the International Rett Syndrome Foundation.

“It brought people together who normally wouldn’t be working with us,” Zwick said. “I can’t tell you how many kids come and ask me, ‘What is Rett Syndrome? I’ve never heard of it.’ And they’re curious and they can meet Izzie. Izzie is open and she’s approachable, and she’s got one of the brightest smiles in the whole school.”

“I like my friends,” Boom said in an interview through the tablet that she uses to communicate.

One of her friends is Sami Iranzi, a junior basketball player who met Izzie during the high school’s Spring Fling event.

“Our food station was across from Izzie’s station and I picked up a duck and it said that they were trying to raise money for her cause and I was inspired and I tried to sell as much ducks as I could to support her,” said Iranzi, who sold 130 of them.

Like Iranzi, Boom’s mother Michelle had never heard of Rett Syndrome before her daughter was diagnosed at the age of 2. Michelle said she and her husband began to notice Izzie was experiencing developmental delays at around nine months. As the family struggled to find an explanation over the coming year, Izzie began to regress.

“She used to say words. She used to say mama and dada, and we had our dog at that point so she said the dog’s name,” Michelle said. “She used to use both of her hands freely and play like any normal child does and during that regression phase that’s when all of that went away.”

Doctors initially suspected other conditions but none felt right to Michelle. It wasn’t until a cousin Googled Izzie’s symptoms that Rett Syndrome appeared on the family’s radar. Ultimately, genetic testing confirmed the diagnosis.

“It was definitely a punch to the gut,” Michelle recalled in an interview. “You’re happy you have a diagnosis. You’re happy that you can move forward and get some treatment or the help she needs to be successful in life and to stop the regression phase. But at the same time, obviously that’s a huge hit.”

Michelle has since become active in Rett Syndrome advocacy, serving as the New Hampshire representative for the International Rett Syndrome Foundation and participating in a variety of other fundraising efforts.

Now, Izzie is entering the fold.

“I think it’s wonderful that she’s using her voice and experiences to try to get the word out there and to also promote ‘Yeah, I have Rett Syndrome and a disability but I’m still like everyone else. I want to have the friends and hang out and do all that stuff’,” Michelle said. “I think it’s just a proud moment for a parent to have her be so vocal.”

Boom participates in the Concord High choir and serves as a cheerleader on the Bedford Adaptive Cheerleading Team. When she is not formally cheerleading, she is often cheering on her three younger brothers, who play a variety of sports. And at home, Izzie is their worthy adversary in Mario Kart.

“They’ll throw a controller on her lap and just say, ‘Yeah, she’s playing with us’, even though she can’t physically pick it up and do it,” Michelle said.

At home and at school, Boom is known as a jokester who is often trying to make people laugh.

Her friend Emma Lesperance, a fellow ninth grader from Deerfield, met Boom in their shared homeroom class last year.

“We have this thing called magnet lunches every week and we would have lots of treats and we would all just be laughing up a storm and all the teachers are laughing,” Lesperance recalled.

In addition to making people laugh, Izzie is known around school for her trademark “Boom” fist bumps.

And now she is known for the ducks.

“These students right now who ask about Rett and are in science class, they very well might be the researchers that find a cure or treatment in their generation,” Zwick said. “Maybe they’re going to go into nursing, maybe they’re going to do medical research, maybe they’re going to be teachers, but they’re going to remember that girl with the big blue eyes and the contagious smile who sold her ducks for Rett Syndrome.”

If you want to buy a duck email teacher Kari Zwick at kzwick@sau8.org.

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.