When Sheri Schwartzkopf’s 7-year-old son comes home from Walsh Elementary School each day, he doesn’t always have to tell her what he did. Many of those days, she can see for herself.
The chance to be near her son, a 1st grader, is a big reason that she volunteers at Walsh, 514 N. MacGregor Rd., Lockport.
“My son loves it that I am in school so much,” Schwartzkopf said. “It’s very rewarding to me to be able to help the teacher so that she can concentrate more on the things she does best in teaching.”
One day Schwartzkopf was sitting outside the classroom working on pieces for a reading game that her son’s teacher, Patti O’Donnell, would be using in the classroom.
Her son, Alec, stopped by to visit as she worked at a table in the hallway.
“It’s nice to have Mom nearby,” he said. “We talk about what we do in school sometimes, and I like that.”
Schwartzkopf goes to school from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. three to five days a week to do whatever tasks O’Donnell has for her. Some involve working with children; many are time-consuming tasks that are part of teaching elementary-age children.
By doing such tasks as coloring and laminating classroom materials and working individually with pupils, volunteers free teachers’ time for preparing lessons and giving additional attention to pupils having difficulties, Schwartzkopf said.
On this particular day Schwartzkopf was busy looking over a series of cardboard ants that had been colored and laminated. She organized them in stacks. Other volunteers colored the ants before she laminated them at school. The ants would be used to teach pupils the long and short sounds of the letter “A.”
Other parents, including those who have jobs outside the home, also help with the work; materials are sent home to them.
Parents who work during the day also volunteer in the evenings doing other tasks, such as making costumes for class plays. About 20 parents in the classroom of 30 pupils help in some way. The school has 600 pupils and is in Lockport Elementary School District 92.
Above Schwartzkopf’s head along the wall were other examples of her work: a series of men’s ties that the children had turned into bunnies. For the assignment, each child brought in an old tie from home. They cut up the ties and used the large tips as the bunnies’ faces and the smaller tips for ears.
“I helped by hot-gluing the eyes to the piece to finish the look,” Schwartzkopf said. “This is a way students can get more work with art in the classroom, and that’s an important way for them to learn.
“The children had quite a discussion about how they were going to put the different pieces together to create the look they wanted. They talked about the patterns and the color and how they looked together when they created their individual bunnies.
“I think what they learned from the project is how to be creative, how to understand the different aspects that go into making art, like color and shape,” said Schwartzkopf, who has a bachelor’s degree in education and has worked as a substitute teacher.
“They also learned how to follow directions, and that’s an important part of learning,” she said.
Another project Schwartzkopf enjoyed was when she and five other mothers helped make costumes for the pupils’ spring musical. The title of the play was “Going Buggy.” Boys were dressed as spiders and girls as ladybugs.
“We sewed the ladybug costumes from red material and created the spider costumes from black cloth,” she said.
During the musical, pupils sang songs about spring.
“The effect was wonderful,” Schwartzkopf said. “The kids looked so cute and it delighted all the parents when they came to see the performance. It’s something that would have been very hard for Mrs. O’Donnell to do by herself. And it made us all feel good to participate and see the results.”
Schwartzkopf’s work also brings her in touch more directly with learning in the classroom. Like other volunteers, she works with a tape recorder to help pupils with their reading.
“What we do is have the students read into the microphone and then replay it for them,” she said. “We have tapes from earlier lessons that they have read. When we play the tapes one after another, they can see how much progress they have made and it gives them more self-confidence.”
The pupils also take the tapes home so that their parents can see what progress the youngsters have made, Schwartzkopf said.
O’Donnell is pleased with the contributions Schwartzkopf has made to her class.
“She helps keep our learning materials organized and is a big help to me in the classroom,” O’Donnell said. “She is so willing to help–she does anything I ask her to do.”
Principal Susan Forbes said that Schwartzkopf makes an ideal volunteer. “She’s very cooperative and willing to be supportive of the teacher. I think we enjoy her as a volunteer because she is so pleasant to be around. She works well with the individual students and is a real asset to Mrs. O’Donnell because she is able to help her focus her time on working on issues related to the curriculum.”
Pupils also say they enjoy having Schwartzkopf around.
“She’s nice and helps us with our reading,” said Kevin Lind, 7.
“She talks to us sometimes and I like having her here,” said Celia Naso, 7.
Schwartzkopf, 31, was born in Berwyn and grew up in Orland Park. She graduated from Sandburg High School in 1985. She attended Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and continued her education at Governors State University, University Park, where she received a bachelor’s degree in education in 1993.
In 1989 she married Duane Schwartzkopf, a carpenter who also owns two locksmith companies in Chicago. The couple lived in Tinley Park before moving to a new home they built in 1994 in an unincorporated area of Homer Township.
“We moved to Homer Township because we were able to build a house there,” she said. “The schools are a real asset for us.
“I find it very satisfying to volunteer because I like being around teachers and students. The volunteering I do gives me a chance to develop my creativity, and that is something I like as well.”
———-
For more information about volunteering at Walsh School, call 815-838-7858.
