CAROLYN NEWBERRY SCHWARTZ BRINGS EXPERIENCE
AND COMMITMENT TO INDEPENDENT BID FOR 
OAK PARK DISTRICT 97 SCHOOL BOARD

OAK PARK, IL — Running independently for the Oak Park District 97 School Board,
Carolyn Newberry Schwartz is a proven bridge-builder who has more than 20 years of 
school and community experience, both as a professional and a volunteer.  Newberry
Schwartz not only has the drive to serve the community by working to improve the
schools, she has a track record for getting things done.

   Raised in Oak Park, Newberry Schwartz currently is co-president of the District 97
PTO Council, and was president of the Whittier School PTO from 1998 to 2000. 
Professionally, she has worked for the Boys and Girls Clubs of King County in Seattle
in two leadership positions, and has held a number of positions at Erie Neighborhood 
House, a social service agency in Chicago.  She has been involved in several local 
community projects, including initiating the campaign to “Save the Dole Learning Center”
and organizing the districtwide effort to address the anti-gay policy of the Boy Scouts of
America, a challenging issue for which Newberry Schwartz acted as a facilitator.  As a
result, seven PTOs rejected the Boy Scouts’ discriminatory policy and adopted a policy
of inclusion in accordance with our local values.

 “Our schools can cite many accomplishments, but there is always room for positive
change,” said Newberry Schwartz.  “However, in order for change to be effective, 
all of us must work together to implement concrete goals and ideas that meet the 
community’s wishes.  I have shown repeatedly that I can do that, and I hope to be
given the opportunity to do it again.”

 Newberry Schwartz has mapped out many goals, including increasing communication 
between the school board and the community.  For instance, she would like to strengthen
the Board’s connections to parent groups and organizations and set up a system in 
which Board members attend various community meetings (APPLE, PTO, Supportive
Education Association) with the express purpose of hearing from the community 
about its aspirations, concerns, and needs. 

 One of her major priorities is improving academic achievement by ensuring District 97 
attracts and retains a diverse, talented and dedicated faculty.  She also will focus on 
improving math and science instruction and clearly identifying educational and program
needs at each school and providing the resources to meet them.  She will work to
ensure the new Middle Level Education Program at Emerson and Julian Schools meets 
the community’s high expectations.

 Newberry Schwartz is anticipating the report of the Education Committee of the 
Commitment to Diversity Task Force for its findings and recommendations after a 
broad dialogue with the Oak Park community.  Noting that diversity is a hallmark 
of Oak Park and a valuable asset, she supports establishing a committee that meets
periodically to monitor diversity trends, evaluate programs and policies and propose
needed changes to support the diversity in the schools. 

She hopes to improve District 97's accountability by broadly publicizing the Board,
superintendent and principals’ goals and objectives and reporting annually on progress.
 She believes programs must regularly be monitored and assessed and advocates
reporting results and encouraging discussion of proposed program changes.  She’d
like to establish the regular use surveys to help assess school effectiveness.  And 
she supports establishing a finance committee to further increase public dialogue 
about the budget process, also promoting understanding of public school finance
and advocating for funding reforms.

 Her experience working with community organizations and schools shows she can
bring people and organizations together to get things done. As president of the 
Whittier PTO, she increased parental involvement.  Among the PTOs many 
accomplishments under her leadership included raising $140,000 to design and 
build a much needed new playground for the school (to be installed in the spring),
a project that had been discussed for years.  She also led faculty and parents in 
creating the Wildcat Council, a student-led group that promotes respect among
peers that won funding from Oak Park Township Youth Services.

 As a program leader for Erie Neighborhood House in West Town, Chicago, 
she created an innovative academic support program for a school that had a 
60-percent dropout rate, a program that won a United Way Voluntary Action
Award.  All participants in the program went on to college.  She also worked 
with other youth organizations and the Archdiocese of Chicago to develop three 
alternative high school programs for teens who had dropped out of school. While
working for the Boys and Girls Clubs in Seattle, she created an award-winning 
summer reading camp for at-risk children, combining resources of six governmental
and not-for-profit agencies and helped establish an inner-city educational support center.

 The daughter of Gene and Louisa Newberry, Newberry Schwartz grew up in 
Oak Park and is a graduate of Hawthorne (now Julian) School and Oak Park
and River Forest High School.  She holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from 
Carleton College, Northfield, Minn.  She moved back to Oak Park in 1993
after living and working in Seattle for six years.  She and her husband, David Schwartz,
have three children ages 4, 8 and 12.  The older two attend Whittier School.

# # #

CLICK HERE FOR POSITION PAPER FROM
CAROLYN NEWBERRY SCHWARTZ