Hi! My name is Cara Olansky and I am delighted to be an educator at Creative Scholars Preschool. In addition to being a lead teacher in the Amigos classroom, I also coordinate and execute the Drama and Visual Arts programs at CSP. I grew up on the North Shore of Massachusetts, and achieved my BA in Theater from Butler University, where I also studied Art History and Design. While attending Butler, I spent a semester abroad in London to further my studies in theater and art at Middlesex University. After my graduation from Butler, I achieved several credits in Early Childhood Development from the University of Phoenix. I’ve been a teacher for over ten years and worked with children of all ages, but preschool is by far my favorite. I consider it a privilege to be a teacher at Creative Scholars because I truly believe that the greatest tool processed by the Human Race is our ability to imagine.
E-mail: colansky@creativescholarspreschool.com

My name is Joe Robinson and I am very happy to be a part of the Creative Scholars team. I teach in the older classroom here at CSP, and I also teach music and Spanish for the school. Originally from Rockford, IL, I began studying music at Northern Illinois University before completing a B.A. in Psychology. I then studied Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for two years. My professional experiences have been with a variety of children and in a variety of settings. I have been a student educational/psychological clinician, an after-school teacher, a summer camp supervisor, and an assistant at a juvenile detention center. But in my years as a preschool teacher, I have found that my greatest passion is for working with young children. I am dedicated to challenging students while maintaining a playful and fun classroom environment.
E-mail: jrobinson@creativescholarspreschool.com

My name is John Saunders, and I am thrilled to be working with two-year-olds at Creative Scholars Preschool! I have been a teacher for over ten years, and have worked with two-year-olds for more than two-and-a-half years. I just love the fun and creative interactions and experiences that this work has brought me! Before working with two-year-olds, I taught classroom music as an outreach teacher in the Chicago Public Schools and kindergarten in Japan. As you might imagine, teaching in a Japanese school helped me learn much of the Japanese language. When I’m not teaching children, I love spending time playing and writing music, riding my bike, traveling, cooking and eating. I earned my B.M. in music composition at Roosevelt University and M.A.T. in early childhood education at National-Louis University. I believe that children learn the most meaningfully through positive interactions and experiences that excite and inspire their minds, and bring their emotions and enthusiasm into their early learning experiences.
E-mail: jsaunders@creativescholarspreschool.com

Hello, my name is Catherine Shumaker, and I will be teaching in one of the morning preschool classrooms. I am very excited to be a part of the wonderful team at Creative Scholars. I attended Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood Education. Following college, I taught 5th grade for two years and during the summer I was a lifeguard and also taught swimming lessons to children between the ages of 3 and 12 years. My husband and I moved to Baltimore, Maryland where he went to graduate school and received his doctorate in Cell and Molecular Biology. While in Baltimore, I started as a lead teacher in a preschool and finished as the Assistant Director. As a preschool teacher, I taught every age level but worked predominately with the older children. In addition, before I left I organized and taught a kindergarten program. As the assistant director, I helped the school become accredited with the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). When my husband finished school, we moved to Chicago where he worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Feinberg School of Medicine Northwestern University. We have lived in Chicago for seven years and have four children, three of whom attend public schools. In each of my older children’s classes, I have taught small reading groups, helped with classroom projects and book fairs, and chaperoned fieldtrips. In addition, I have also substituted for an elementary school reading and mathematics program held at UIC. I am looking forward to being back in the classroom and working with preschoolers again.
E-mail: cshumaker@creativescholarspreschool.com