Carolyn Newberry Schwartz

Consultant

Carolyn is passionate about building connections between families, schools, and social service organizations to develop strong communities where children thrive. Her long history of developing educational programs in communities includes Oak Park Elementary Schools and District 97. She also served at the Board of Education for eight years, helping launch Oak Park’s Collaboration for Early Childhood. Finally, she has leadership experience in school finance and strategic planning.

As the Oak Park Collaboration’s first executive director, she lead the effort to secure intergovernmental agreements between three Oak Park jurisdictions to fund and sustain an integrated community system of high-quality early childhood programs and services.

Carolyn has worked as a consultant to the CS3 Project at Illinois Action for Children since 2019, coaching communities to develop and strengthen their collaborative efforts in early childhood, providing training on governance and data use, and developing strategies to strengthen collaboration leadership.