By Assia Boundaoui, CNN

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Chicago (CNN) –Rola Othman sits at her dining room table littered with papers, poring over school board minutes.

Othman, a mother of two, has a doctorate in education. She says that when her son’s school cut Advanced Placement classes and slashed the budget for academic programming, it was time to act.

“I see my kid’s school going in the opposite direction, it’s kind of scary. You can only make calls for so long,” she said. “You need to effect change by being in the place to make decisions.”

For Othman, that means running for the school board in her hometown of Burbank, Illinois. If elected, she would become the only Muslim American school board member in Illinois.

In Chicago, while Muslims have been active in voter registration, Othman and other candidates like her are part of the first organized effort to prepare and mobilize Muslims to run for political office.

Project Mobilize is a nonprofit organization with the mission of developing the political potential of the Muslim community in Chicago’s southwest suburbs.

Launched last spring, it is the first professional political action organization that focuses on the grass-roots political empowerment and engagement of American Muslims through local politics.

Executive Director Reema Ahmed says that Muslim candidates running for public office is a natural next step.

“For the past 20 years, the Muslim American community here has gone from learning about what it means to be a citizen, to registering to vote, to going out on election day. The natural trend of any community is to become more and more involved and seek to give back.”

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