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(SCHWAB ETF LOGO) Summary Prospectus  February 29, 2012
 
 
Schwab Intermediate-Term U.S. Treasury ETFtm
 
Ticker Symbol: SCHR
 
 
Before you invest, you may want to review the fund’s prospectus, which contains more information about the fund and its risks. You can find the fund’s prospectus, Statement of Additional Information (SAI) and other information about the fund online at www.schwabetfs.com/prospectus. You can also obtain this information at no cost by calling 1-866-414-6349 or by sending an email request to orders@mysummaryprospectus.com. If you purchase or hold fund shares through a financial intermediary, the fund’s prospectus, SAI, and other information about the fund are available from your financial intermediary.
 
The fund’s prospectus dated April 30, 2011, and SAI dated April 30, 2011, as supplemented May 26, 2011 and February 29, 2012, include a more detailed discussion of fund investment policies and the risks associated with various fund investments. The prospectus and SAI are incorporated by reference into the summary prospectus, making them legally a part of the summary prospectus.
 
Investment objective
 
The fund’s goal is to track as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Barclays Capital U.S. 3-10 Year Treasury Bond Indexsm.3
 
Fund fees and expenses
 
This table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the fund. The table does not reflect brokerage commissions you may incur when buying or selling fund shares.
 
     
 Shareholder fees (fees paid directly from your investment)
 
    None
     
     
 Annual fund operating expenses
(expenses that you pay each year as a % of the value of your investment)
Management fees   0.12
     
Other expenses   None
     
Total annual operating expenses   0.12
     
 
 Example
 
 
This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those time periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same. This example does not reflect any brokerage commissions you may incur when buying or selling fund shares. Your actual costs may be higher or lower.
 
 Expenses on a $10,000 investment
 
     
1 year   3 years
$12
  $39
 
 Portfolio Turnover
 
The fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in the annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the fund’s performance. For the period of August 4, 2010 (the date on which the fund commenced operations) to the end of the fund’s most recent fiscal year, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 20% of the average value of its portfolio.
 
Principal investment strategies
 
To pursue its goal, the fund generally invests in securities that are included in the index. The index includes all publicly-issued U.S. Treasury securities that have a remaining maturity of greater than or equal to three years and less than ten years, are rated investment grade, and have $250 million or more of outstanding face value. The securities in the index must be denominated in U.S. dollars and must be fixed-rate and non-convertible. The index excludes state and local government series bonds and coupon issues that have been stripped from bonds. The index is market capitalization weighted and the securities in the index are updated on the last business day of each month. As of March 31, 2011, there were 95 issues in the index.
 
It is the fund’s policy that under normal circumstances it will invest at least 90% of its net assets in securities included in the index.
 
Under normal circumstances, the fund may invest up to 10% of its net assets in securities not included in its index. The principal types of these investments include those that the adviser believes will help the fund track the index, such as investments in (a) securities that are not represented in the index but the adviser anticipates will be added to the index; (b) high-quality liquid short-term investments, such as securities issued by the U.S. government, its agencies or instrumentalities, including obligations that are not guaranteed by the U.S. Treasury, and obligations that are issued by private issuers that are guaranteed as to principal or interest by the U.S. government, its agencies or instrumentalities, and (c) investment companies, including money market funds. The fund may also invest in cash and cash equivalents, enter into repurchase agreements, and may lend its securities to

3 Index ownership — © Barclays Capital Inc. 2011. All rights reserved. The Schwab Intermediate-Term U.S. Treasury ETF is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by Barclays Capital. Barclays Capital does not make any representation regarding the advisability of investing in shares of the fund.

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minimize the difference in performance that naturally exists between an index fund and its corresponding index.
 
The adviser will seek to track the price and yield performance of the index by using statistical sampling techniques. These techniques involve investing in a limited number of index securities that, when taken together, are expected to perform similarly to the index as a whole. These techniques are based on a variety of factors, including interest rate and yield curve risk, maturity exposures, and other risk factors and characteristics. The fund generally expects that its portfolio will hold less than the total number of securities in the index, but reserves the right to hold as many securities as it believes necessary to achieve the fund’s investment objective. The fund generally expects that its yield and maturity will be similar to those of the index. In addition, the fund generally expects that its weighted average effective duration will closely correspond to the weighted average effective duration of the index, which as of March 31, 2011 was 5.20 years.
 
The adviser seeks to achieve, over time, a correlation between the fund’s performance and that of its index, before fees and expenses, of 95% or better. However, there can be no guarantee that the fund will achieve a high degree of correlation with the index. A number of factors may affect the fund’s ability to achieve a high correlation with its index, including the degree to which the fund utilizes a sampling technique. The correlation between the performance of the fund and its index may also diverge due to transaction costs, asset valuations, timing variances, and differences between the fund’s portfolio and the index resulting from legal restrictions (such as diversification requirements) that apply to the fund but not to the index.
 
Principal Risks
 
The fund is subject to risks, any of which could cause an investor to lose money. The fund’s principal risks include:
 
Market Risk. Bond markets rise and fall daily. As with any investment whose performance is tied to these markets, the value of your investment in the fund will fluctuate, which means that you could lose money.
 
Investment Style Risk. The fund is not actively managed. Therefore, the fund follows the securities included in the index during upturns as well as downturns. Because of its indexing strategy, the fund does not take steps to reduce market exposure or to lessen the effects of a declining market. In addition, because of the fund’s expenses, the fund’s performance is normally below that of the index.
 
Interest Rate Risk. Interest rates will rise and fall over time. During periods when interest rates are low, the fund’s yield and total return also may be low. The longer the fund’s duration, the more sensitive to interest rate movements its share price is likely to be.
 
Credit Risk. The fund is subject to the risk that a decline in the credit quality of a portfolio investment could cause the fund to lose money or underperform. The fund could lose money if the issuer or guarantor of a portfolio investment fails to make timely principal or interest payments or otherwise honor its obligations.
 
Sampling Index Tracking Risk. The fund will not fully replicate the index and may hold securities not included in the index. As a result, the fund is subject to the risk that the adviser’s investment management strategy, the implementation of which is subject to a number of constraints, may not produce the intended results.
 
Tracking Error Risk. The fund’s return may not match the return of the index due to differences between the fund’s securities and those in the index. Tracking error also may be attributable to the fund’s inability to match the securities’ weighting to the index or due to other regulatory, operational or liquidity constraints. The fund also incurs fees and expenses while the index does not, which may result in tracking error.
 
Liquidity Risk. A particular investment may be difficult to purchase or sell. The fund may be unable to sell illiquid securities at an advantageous time or price.
 
Securities Lending Risk. Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in the collateral or delay in recovery of the collateral if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
 
Market Trading Risk. Although fund shares are listed on national securities exchanges, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for fund shares will develop or be maintained. If an active market is not maintained, investors may find it difficult to buy or sell fund shares.
 
Shares of the Fund May Trade at Prices Other Than NAV. Fund shares may be bought and sold in the secondary market at market prices. Although it is expected that the market price of the shares of the fund will approximate the fund’s net asset value (NAV), there may be times when the market price and the NAV vary significantly. You may pay more than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market.
 
Lack of Governmental Insurance or Guarantee. An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
 
For more information on the risks of investing in the fund please see the “Fund details” section in the prospectus.
 
Performance
 
The fund does not have a full year of performance history. Once the fund has completed a full calendar year of operations a bar chart and table will be included that will provide some indication of the risks of investing in the fund by showing the variability of the fund’s returns and comparing the fund’s performance to the index.
 
Investment adviser
 
Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc.

         
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Portfolio managers
 
Matthew Hastings, CFA, a managing director and portfolio manager of the investment adviser, has day-to-day responsibility for the co-management of the fund. He has managed the fund since 2010.
 
Steven Chan, CFA, a portfolio manager of the investment adviser, has day-to-day responsibility for the co-management of the fund. He has managed the fund since 2010.
 
Brandon Matsui, CFA, a portfolio manager of the investment adviser, has day-to-day responsibility for the co-management of the fund. He has managed the fund since 2010.
 
Purchase and sale of fund shares
 
The fund issues and redeems shares at its NAV only in large blocks of shares, typically 100,000 shares or more (“Creation Units”). These transactions are usually in exchange for a basket of securities included in the index and an amount of cash. As a practical matter, only institutions or large investors purchase or redeem Creation Units. Except when aggregated in Creation Units, shares of the fund are not redeemable securities.
 
Individual shares of the fund trade on national securities exchanges and elsewhere during the trading day and can only be bought and sold at market prices throughout the trading day through a broker-dealer. Because fund shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount).
 
Tax information
 
Dividends and capital gains distributions received from the fund will generally be taxable as ordinary income or capital gains, unless you are investing through an IRA, 401(k) or other tax-advantaged account.

         
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Schwab ETFstm

REG56419FLD-06

Schwab Intermediate-Term U.S. Treasury ETFtm; Ticker Symbol: SCHR

         
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