DOLTON | Public school advocates and supporters of the call for more equitable school funding in Illinois are mourning the loss of one of the cause's greatest crusaders.

Sharon Voliva, of Dolton, a longtime member of the Thornton Township High School District 205 board, member of the Illinois PTA, and founder and chairman of the statewide Better Funding for Better Schools Coalition, died Saturday following an illness. She was 64.

The friend to education left unfinished her decades-long fight for school funding reform.

Lansing Elementary District 158 Superintendent Veronda Cottle called Voliva "a voice for children" and someone who had "so much passion for kids."

"She never backed down from anything," Cottle said.

As the leader of the coalition of school districts, education advocates, parents, and others supporting comprehensive funding reform, Voliva was known to tirelessly travel across the state and to Springfield to discuss education funding and to press for legislative action.

"She was a great, tireless fighter on behalf of school funding. You can't think of school funding without Sharon," state Sen. James T. Meeks said in a prepared statement. "All of the children of Illinois have suffered a great loss."

"My only regret," said Meeks who also is sponsor of House/Senate Bill 750, "is that she did not see adequate school funding before she passed. Maybe this year, in her memory, we can get it done."

"She never slowed down for one minute. She was driven and felt this was the most important cause in the world," said Chris Slowik, organizational director of the South Cook Organization for Public Education and vice chairman and acting chairman of the Better Funding for Better Schools group. "If they ever get around to fixing it (school funding), we're going to make sure it's called The Sharon Voliva Bill."

"Everybody respected her and loved her. She was so dedicated to improving education for all kids. She worked so hard to bring adequacy and equality to the system and she worked for 30 years on it," Slowik said. "We're pretty sure she's up there lobbying the Lord. We feel her looking over our shoulder."

Slowik called her friend "the best advocate that public education in this state, maybe anywhere, ever had."

"She's the one that put the spark in the fire and kept it lit all these years, and fanned it," she said. "I'm getting requests to continue her work, to not fold up and give up. We feel we have a responsibility to Sharon now to keep at it."

District 205 Superintendent J. Kamala Buckner said Voliva always was committed to children, would always look to the research to make her decisions, and wanted to make sure when cuts were being made by the district the arts were not eliminated.

District 205 serves Thornton High School in Harvey, Thornridge High in Dolton and Thornwood High in South Holland.

Voliva had been on the School Board for 23 years, Buckner said.

"She was very concerned about the whole child," she said. "She always wanted to make sure children in this community received the same equity services, funding ... as the North Shore."

Buckner said Voliva also made sure the district always received input from the community, put "children and community first," believed education could change lives and wanted to "keep politics out of education."

"We are very thankful that she was a part of our lives," she said.