On Tuesday (December 9th, 2025), Catalyst Co-Founder and Director of External Relations Ed Siderewicz received the Charter Advocate Lifetime Achievement Award from the Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS)! Ed’s nomination read in part (more of his nomination is below!): This year’s Lifetime Achievement Awardee was instrumental in the founding of a high performing charter school and in advancing school choice in Chicago. This is the kind of person you want around during both good and difficult times because their calm and open demeanor makes everyone not only feel safe and supported, but valued, heard, and honored. This person’s commitment to his schools’ community is unparalleled. As Chicago built momentum toward placing families and children first, allowing for parents, especially those with limited resources to choose the best school for their child, this person was always at the forefront of encouraging, inspiring, and DOING. This person is a dreamer with two feet on the ground running. His favorite quote is this: “faith is believing despite the evidence, and then watching the evidence change”. In this person’s case, that powerful faith is backed up by powerful action.
Additionally, Catalyst Maria teacher Tiffany Ware was the finalist for the Teacher of the Year Award! The event was attended by over two dozen Catalyst staff and Board members who celebrated Tiffany and Ed’s incredible impact on innumerable lives at Catalyst!
From Catalyst Clips Newsletter:
Each week, Catalyst Clips highlights a leader(s) nominated by their peers who embodies the network’ mission of teaching minds and touching hearts. This week’s Catalyst Leader is Catalyst Co-Founder and Director of External Relations Ed Siderewicz! As mentioned above, Ed received the Charter Advocate Lifetime Achievement Award this week from the Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS)! Ed was recognized on Tuesday night, with his nomination below:
This year’s Lifetime Achievement Awardee was instrumental in the founding of a high performing charter school and in advancing school choice in Chicago. This is the kind of person you want around during both good and difficult times because their calm and open demeanor makes everyone not only feel safe and supported, but valued, heard, and honored. This person’s commitment to his schools’ community is unparalleled.
His career in education - what he would call a vocation, a calling of the heart, began in earnest immediately after college in a math classroom in Nebraska. It spanned multiple schools and locations, including a decade serving the indigenous Mayan community in Guatemala. At every turn, he was about compassion, service, connecting, sharing the good news that all people are worthy of dignity and respect, that all of life is sacred. When he returned to Chicago it was no surprise that he would launch schools for families who needed a pathway to success they were not otherwise finding in their local public school. The first school started in the dining room of a convent at 48th and Damen, staffed totally by volunteer teachers living together in community in 1995.
He caught the attention of then CPS CEO Arne Duncan and Mayor Daley for his unwavering dedication to education in his founding these schools in Chicago named after a humble yet gifted educator and Saint from Ecuador. When he and his colleagues were asked to share their talent and mission in the public sector, this person’s faithful “yes” launched a public/private partnership in 2006 to bring resources, talent, and attention to Chicago’s most deserving neighborhoods through the Catalyst Charter Schools and its many partners.
As Chicago built momentum toward placing families and children first, allowing for parents, especially those with limited resources to choose the best school for their child, this person was always at the forefront of encouraging, inspiring, and DOING. This person is a dreamer with two feet on the ground running. His favorite quote is this: “faith is believing despite the evidence, and then watching the evidence change”. In this person’s case, that powerful faith is backed up by powerful action.
As Chicago has taken another historic turn to an elected school Board, this person is again at the forefront of inviting, uplifting, and connecting new board members with the charter community. He has made it a personal mission to get as many board members to his schools as possible and, because it is very hard to say no to him, most of them have visited! He grounds them and others in the school’s mission to “teach minds and touch hearts” - thereby bringing conversations home to the children and families we are here to serve.
His warmth, his dedication and his gentle soul make him the undeniable winner of this year’s 2025 Illinois Charter School Lifetime Achievement Award.
We are incredibly grateful to Ed for the dedication and passion he brings to teaching and minds and touching hearts in the lives of so many!
