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Brian Lawton (Libertyville School District 70, At-large, Illinois, candidate 2025)
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Brian Lawton ran for election for an at-large seat of the Libertyville School District 70 school board in Illinois. He was on the ballot in the general election on April 1, 2025.[source]
Lawton completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.
[1]Biography
Brian Lawton provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on February 9, 2025:
- High school: Libertyville High School
- Bachelor's: Illinois State University, 2006
- Associate: College of Lake County, 2016
- Gender: Male
- Incumbent officeholder: Yes
- Campaign Facebook
Elections
General election
General election for Libertyville School District 70, At-large (4 seats)
The following candidates ran in the general election for Libertyville School District 70, At-large on April 1, 2025.
Candidate | ||
| David Carani (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Kacie J. Feeney (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Katherine Grove (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Jennifer Khan (Nonpartisan) | ||
Brian Lawton (Nonpartisan)  | ||
| Travis McGhee (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Brian Pleviak (Nonpartisan) | ||
| ||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Election results
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Lawton in this election.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Brian Lawton completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Lawton's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I lived in Libertyville for the first two years of my life before my parents relocated to Vernon Hills where I attended Hawthorn grade schools and then Libertyville High School. Illinois State University came next where I was fortunate enough to meet my future wife. After graduation we decided to make Libertyville our permanent home, coincidentally residing in the same neighborhood where I first lived years ago.
Like so many who either stay or move here, one of the deciding factors for us was how great the schools are. Our experiences in the district continually remind us that we made an excellent choice about where to live and I am so proud to have been a part of what makes the district so wonderful over these past four years.
On a more personal note, I am a stay-at-home parent for our two boys who both attend district 70 schools. I hold a B.A. in German and an A.A.S in Computer Forensics and I enjoy playing hockey and softball, reading, and working on both bicycles and cars.
I am hoping to earn the opportunity to continue the great work our board and district have done over the past four years.- District 70 has continually improved its rankings over the past four years across many different rating platforms. Because these include a wide array of metrics, it is a good starting point to show all the great work the board and our superintendent have recently accomplished.
- We have worked hard to maintain a balanced budget during my tenure, and I remain dedicated to that target. With a robust long-range facilities plan and continual budget reviews, we have shown an ability to address the needs of our students and buildings within the balanced budget we have approved.
- We have always been considered a high preforming district but have still seen recent gains in growth and achievement. Our district proficiency rates are well above state standards and have started to see growth as well. We have also overseen a tightening of our achievement gaps and have had success in raising the floor to shrink those numbers.
I am passionate about public education as a whole. I am currently a member of our board's policy committee and a board representative to ED-RED (a public education advocacy group). I have spent time talking to legislators in Springfield and continually educating myself on the policies and laws that play a vital role in our public education system.
I believe it comes down to being honest, trustworthy, respecting the opinions of all, and being open with those you are elected to represent. Regardless of what you are doing within your position, it is important to operate with those principles in mind.
This could be a very long list but all of those items can be reduced to two simple questions board members continually ask themselves. How will this decision improve or otherwise affect the students and is this a responsible use of the public funds we oversee.
My first job, outside of occasionally baby sitting, was at a local bicycle shop in a neighboring town. It was quite glamorous at first, mostly sweeping floors and cutting cardboard for recycling. At the same time though, I was learning about the biking industry, how to build them, fix them, fit them, and sell them. I stayed with it on and off (mostly on) for about 15 years, working my way up to head mechanic in what would be seen as a managerial position.
I have seen it said before that everyone should work retail (or a public facing position), at least for a short amount of time and I am inclined to agree with this on some level. It gave me valuable experience in helping a wide array of people find something they could potentially enjoy for a long time. Of course it also gave me a chance to work on diffusing situations where people were less than pleased with certain outcomes. In the end, it does give you a great perspective on how the needs of each person vary considerably, even in something as basic as the bicycle industry.
A school board member’s role is to function as a representative of the community to continually improve outcomes and experiences for all the district’s students. Board members do this by working together and keeping a broad, top-down governance perspective. Two key responsibilities are to employ and review the superintendent and clarify the district's purpose through policy. It is through these duties that authority can be delegated for daily operation, that boards can be faithful stewards of taxpayer money, that performance can be monitored, and that staff can focus on teaching and caring for students.
Being elected to the board of one of the larger public bodies in our community, and one that draws a significant percentage of property taxes, means our constituents are everyone who lives within the district’s boundaries. Parents with incoming or current students may have different views on the district than other residents but they are all represented equally by board members. In addition to our community members, I also believe the staff employed by the district should be recognized under this umbrella. While their residence may preclude them from voting for board members, they have an essential role in the day-to-day lives of our students, and I welcome their input.
As a public body I believe we have a duty to meet all students where they are. This means having robust services for students with Individualized Education Programs, having programs for our gifted and talented students, and having varied assistance-based programs where they may be needed. In addition to these and all standard educational models, it means ensuring that all our students feel comfortable, safe, and cared for within our walls. This same sentiment needs to be extended to our staff as well. It would be difficult to keep all these programs functioning at the highest level when the staff implementing them does not feel supported.
The nature of communication from currently seated board members is a unique entity. No one member can speak for the board and as such our role as individuals often entails one-sided communication, meaning we are there to listen. Everyone can access our contact information (phone and email) on our district website. I am always open to hearing what our community, staff, and students have to say and keep that mindset throughout my tenure on the school board. I will continue to attend district and school specific events, keep my lines of communication open for all, and will welcome every opinion I hear. We also continue to live stream our board meetings and archive them on a popular media sharing site for access later (also found through our website.)
Being a board member, I do not believe it is my purview to decide what exactly makes a teacher or their methods “good.” Student A may learn best one way and student B another and a good teacher will adapt those methods to ensure all can learn. It is a board’s job to review and assess the outcomes that derive from those potentially varying methods and the curriculum used. This is done by continually reviewing data from testing (Illinois Assessment of Readiness and STAR) and utilizing the Illinois School Report Card. By building multiple yearly data sets, our district has developed new plans for improving student outcomes and achievement as well as addressing gaps in those areas across varied demographic groups.
We are continually reviewing our curriculum to ensure that what our district teaches will afford students opportunities to succeed and prepare them for high school and beyond. As technology permeates increasingly throughout our nation and world, we must adapt as well to keep our students ready for what may come next. This means introducing things like coding, AI and how to use it responsibly, digital art and literacy, and much more. While doing that, we also cannot lose focus on the core studies that expand a child’s mind and prepare them for each subsequent grade they attend. There are methods and opportunities to do these things seamlessly and in a balanced way that can only enhance a student’s education and growth.
Being a responsible steward of taxpayer money is a vital role board members take on. In district 70, we have presented a balanced budget over the last few years while still addressing capital projects for our older buildings. In Illinois’ Evidence Based Funding (EBF) model, we are a Tier 4 district, meaning we are at or above the funding adequacy target set by the state. As such, district funding comes primarily from local property taxes. Even within that funding structure, I have still spent time advocating for educational dollars from the state (grants, fully funded mandates, EBF dollars, etc). When the state issues educational mandates, it is important that we do not have to divert money from our existing programs to fund anything new from Springfield.
School safety is always on the mind of all parents and everyone involved in public education. I believe schools should be as secure as possible while still presenting and feeling like a welcoming building for students, staff, and visitors. We have had a strong focus on safety over the past four years and have made many improvements to our facilities and procedures. We have secured and made updates to all points of entry, continued and expanded our partnership with the local police department, and standardized procedures across all our buildings. This past year we also hired a dedicated director of Safety and Security to ensure we continually review our safety protocols and stay up to date on best practices.
As a district we had some terribly unfortunate events occur over the last few years that gave us some insight in how to best care for our students, staff, and the community as a whole. One of the things we saw was how therapy dogs can help in many situations, so we made the decision to “hire” these helping paws for our buildings. It is an ongoing process but has shown itself to be beneficial to this point. I am also a proponent of our Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) program, having just seen an update to the resources we use. At its core, it is a fantastic way to allow students a chance to be heard, to feel seen, and to connect with their teachers.
I have been on our district’s policy committee for the past two years and have come to know our manual quite well over that time. Along with a fellow board member and our HR team, we read each policy line by line against up-to-date suggested and mandated policies from the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB), who provide a policy service for member districts. During this process we edited certain policies to fit our district’s needs and deleted those that were unneeded. Because of this process all our policies are currently sound and continually updated as needed. In addition to updates from IASB due to legal mandates and/or changes to best practice, I am also developing an outline that may be used to review sections of our policies on a set timeline to ensure they are being followed throughout the district and/or still align with our best practices.
Creating an ideal learning environment for our students falls a bit outside of what a board member’s job entails. That said, I believe creating a safe, nurturing environment is a key factor in a student’s ability to learn and grow. Children spend a large amount of their day with their teachers and creating a space where students want to be can foster better connections and overall improved instruction.
I do not think our district did overly poor during COVID but we certainly had room for improvement. I think a few of the issues our district had were the end results of errors in communication and a lack of continual advanced planning. Everyone was thrown into mostly uncharted territory and that left people with real concerns over each decision made. Often there was late communication or too many polls going out in a brief period of time resulting in hasty changes to decisions. When you are balancing public mandates, Health Department guidance, and the asks of the community, leadership and direct communication are of utmost importance.
For any presently unknown future occurrences, an easy fallback is to expect the best but prepare for the worst. Districts, including D70, already do this for events revolving around safety (tornadoes, lock-downs, fires, and now pandemics) so they know the basic outline as guidance. Once you have your preparations in place, make sure you communicate them in a robust fashion when any given new scenario may arise.
For any presently unknown future occurrences, an easy fallback is to expect the best but prepare for the worst. Districts, including D70, already do this for events revolving around safety (tornadoes, lock-downs, fires, and now pandemics) so they know the basic outline as guidance. Once you have your preparations in place, make sure you communicate them in a robust fashion when any given new scenario may arise.
As an incumbent I hope that people continue to feel comfortable reaching out to me as needed. Being a local board member means I live in town and enjoy going to our local events (farmer’s markets, Libertyville days, lunch in the park, school events etc.) While people do not often stop and engage in board conversations at those events, when they do, I always welcome the input. I was also fortunate enough to be one of the board representatives for our Family Associations (FA). Every two months the district administration presents to FA leaders and gets feedback on different topics which I can then bring back to the board where needed. Without hearing from people within the community and buildings, this job becomes even more difficult.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Other survey responses
Ballotpedia identified the following surveys, interviews, and questionnaires Lawton completed for other organizations. If you are aware of a link that should be added, email us.
See also
2025 Elections
External links
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Candidate Libertyville School District 70, At-large |
Footnotes
