In 2018, The Teaneck Chamber of Commerce named Barbara Ostroth as their Woman of the Year. The fact is – Barbara Ostroth has earned this recognition for the many years she has actively participated in our public schools and township service groups.
We Teaneck voters just elected one incumbent and two newcomers to the Board of Education. These good, talented people follow in the footsteps and stand on the shoulders of Barbara, elected to the BOE in 1995, and her fellow Trustees. Please listen to her talk about her experience as a BOE Trustee, where she served on the Policy, Negotiations and Outreach committees:
Serving on the Teaneck Board of Education for 12 years was a significant part of my life. Our board members were particularly collegial in our workshop sessions, sometimes disagreeing but always working towards consensus and the chief goal of providing quality public education opportunities in Teaneck. It was our job to provide the best instructional opportunities and support programs in our schools, always encouraging students, parents, teachers, administrators, and the community to reinforce those opportunities and encourage students to take full advantage of them.
Barbara grew up in a family that prized education. She attended public schools in the suburbs of Philadelphia and later in Wellesley, Massachusetts, when her father went to Brandeis for his doctorate in Social Work. While Barbara was in college, her mother also earned her master’s and doctorate in Community Education at Harvard. Barbara graduated from Kalamazoo College in Michigan as a theater major in 1974. The family commitment to education and to providing the fertile environment that produces the benefits of education shaped Barbara’s lifelong dedication to the students and families of Teaneck.
Having gone to high school in a Boston suburb, Barbara’s experience of school desegregation was very different from the community she moved to as an adult. While Teaneck was voluntarily desegregating its schools, Boston was aflame with rage over court-ordered busing. The solution was in the METCO program which bused inner city youngsters to schools in more affluent suburbs. Barbara talks about her involvement as a high school student:
Being a child of the 60's in high school helped me to grow significantly as a person. My high school was upper middle-class, and was part of the METCO program in Boston. Minority students were being bused out to suburban white high schools. I volunteered to take a summer school class that was called HUMANITIES, run by a Social Studies teacher and English teacher. Its purpose was to help the inner city students as well of those of us already there to become acquainted with each other. That interdisciplinary class was continued during my junior year. We all felt special in helping to shape that first HUMANITIES class and stayed in touch with each other and our teachers for many years.
Since moving to Teaneck almost 40 years ago, Barbara Ostroth has been one of Teaneck’s most enthusiastic and active residents. Her strong record of community service and volunteering has extended through her support of Teaneck’s public schools and township cultural events.
Barbara and her husband Jeff moved here in 1983 and raised their four children in the Teaneck Public Schools. Barbara quickly became involved in her children’s PTAs and sports booster clubs in addition to leading successful efforts to pass two bond issues in the 1990’s to renovate our public school buildings.
She is a longtime member of the Teaneck League of Women Voters as VP for Voter Services, setting up candidates’ forums for local elections as well as coordinating voter registration efforts each year throughout the community and county (also representing Teaneck on Bergen County’s Inter-League LWV Organization).
Barbara serves on the Board of Directors of Teaneck Community Scholarship Fund, was president of Teaneck’s education foundation (TOPS) for several years and was a mentoring mom for Bergen Volunteer Center. Currently, in addition, Barbara is a member of the Greater Bergen Board of Realtors’ Community Service committee which helps families in need throughout Bergen County.
Barbara has made her living as a full-time residential realtor in Teaneck and Bergen County for over 37 years first with Riotto Associates in Teaneck and since 1998 with Coldwell Banker Realty. As a realtor, Barbara always promotes Teaneck’s multicultural community. Both in her work and as a volunteer, her approach has always been “What can I do to help solve problems and make my town stronger?” Barbara takes pride in being a good Teaneck neighbor and advocate for our diverse community.
Now a grandmother of five, Barbara brings energy and enthusiasm to her family, her work, and her community. And she still finds time for her great passion – Broadway theater. Given the choices she made in high school through to her love for our wonderfully diverse community, it was not a surprise to learn about the first Broadway play she saw. It was in 1968, and the play dealt with racism and the “destiny of man pitted against society”… The Great White Hope starring James Earl James – an auspicious beginning to a lifelong love affair with theater, and even more, with Teaneck!
