Honoring the Power of Families: Celebrating Mary Lee & 25 Years of Family Power

Families In Schools (FIS) is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, including a benefit gala on June 3, 2026, that will honor several individuals who embody FIS’s mission. As we lead up to our gala in June, FIS will be releasing one profile every week on each of our gala’s honorees to celebrate their leadership stories and demonstrate how they honor the spirit of their award.

For the fourth of our recipients, Families In Schools is honored to present the Power of Families Award to Mary Lee, one of two family leader honorees receiving this award. Families are the heartbeat of change. This award honors parents and caregivers whose leadership has transformed schools and communities—proving that when families raise their voices, systems listen. Their courage and love remind us that true educational justice begins at home, and it begins with family power.

“Mary Lee is not only a strong and effective advocate for children in Los Angeles; she’s also been a mentor to many parents, helping them grow in their leadership,” said FIS President and CEO Yolie Flores. “FIS’s parent leadership programs wouldn’t be as strong as they are today without her passion and relentless determination to ensure all families have their voices heard. We are truly honored to recognize Mary with this award.”

Seeing the Potential in Every Child

Growing up in West Los Angeles alongside one of her four sisters, Mary Lee experienced what great public schooling can be. She avidly read, sang in chorus, and played volleyball in diverse and integrated schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). In third grade, her family temporarily moved to Texas, where she got her first exposure to segregated schools.

Despite the segregation around her, Mary still found positivity and inspiration in her third-grade teacher, Mrs. Blue, who continues to be a role model for her to this day.

In middle school, Mary returned to Los Angeles and continued to excel academically, graduating from Hamilton High School and USC, where she earned a bachelor’s degree. Through a college job as a receptionist at a financial printing company, she discovered her passion for sales and marketing as she worked her way up in the company over seventeen years.

Becoming An Advocate for Her Own Children

During this period, Mary gave birth to her first son, Mede, who attended Catholic school in the West Adams area. As a single working mother, she often utilized after-school care and other activities to juggle her work schedule, care for her son, and his school’s required volunteer hours. She later moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where she organized and fundraised for March of Dimes and helped set up an employee food bank at her company.

When Mary’s second son, Krystian, began elementary school at age six, he began to experience challenges at school. He struggled to sit still or focus on learning, and he was sometimes so disruptive that the teacher had him removed from the classroom.

“My youngest son was being labeled a bad kid,” said Ms. Lee. “Instead of positive interventions, he was facing disciplinary actions that simply would have forced him out of school. He was being seen as a stereotypical ‘Black kid’ in need of punishment rather than support and understanding.”

Krystian was ultimately diagnosed with ADHD, as well as Asperger’s Syndrome—a form of autism—three years later. Since some of his teachers weren’t well-educated on children with disabilities and lacked cultural competency, Mary decided to learn about special education herself so she could advocate for her son.

She attended trainings, got resources from his doctors and therapists, and built a support network for Krystian. All these efforts bore fruit as her son started thriving at school and getting good grades, developing his passion for art. Eventually, though, Mary’s mother got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in Los Angeles, and while she didn’t want to disrupt Krystian’s supports, she had no choice but to move them back to care for her.

Fighting for All Vulnerable Children

After placing her high school-aged son in LAUSD, Mary was shocked to see how the school district had changed since she was a student.

“LAUSD had been in the top ten or the top five of school systems many moons ago, but everything had changed,” said Ms. Lee. “If you weren’t in a more economically stable or advantaged area of Los Angeles, your kids didn’t get the type of support and help that they needed. The dropout rates were high, and the quality of teachers was low.”

Mary found it incredibly challenging getting Krystian the same kind of support he’d had in Atlanta. Through her search, she met many families, especially those with children in special education, who were experiencing the same barriers but struggled to advocate for their kids.

Mary also connected with Special Needs Network (SNN), a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for and supporting families with autism and other developmental disabilities in underserved communities. She started volunteering and training with them to help her son and other families of color to get the special needs support they were lacking. Her son got back on track and went on to graduate from Helen Bernstein High School, as well as completing a Vocational Training Program with West LA College and now being a full-time employee alongside his neurotypical peers.

As a Parent Advocate Mentor with Special Needs Network, Mary was introduced to Families In Schools by another advocate, and she joined the first cohort of its Parent Ambassador program in 2012, learning how to advocate for the basic rights of parents and students in academic settings.

Alongside fellow FIS parent leaders, Mary advocated before the LAUSD school board and at public hearings with state officials in Sacramento to support legislation around improving education for kids of color. In 2013, Mary was one of 200 parents and caregivers from Los Angeles who travelled to the State Capitol by bus to give public comment on California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), advocating that family engagement be incorporated into the legislation. These changes were implemented in the final legislation.

“Improving local control funding was important for us because, after seeing the lack of funding in our communities, we knew that we needed more control in our local school areas,” said Ms. Lee. “We had to make sure that the money from Sacramento went to places like South Central and was spent on the kids who needed it most. That success with the LCFF was one of my biggest and proudest accomplishments with Families In Schools.”

Supporting Other Parents to Grow as Advocates

After volunteering for several years, Mary was hired by Special Needs Network in 2016, where she still works as their Senior Director of Community Outreach and Advocacy. She travels across the state, partnering with community-based organizations to better support families of children with unique needs.

“I am deeply grateful to have Mary Lee as a partner in good trouble,” said Ingrid Rivera-Guzman, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Special Needs Network. “Her lived experiences, conviction to justice, and unwavering faith have molded her into a kind, loving, and relentless community leader, organizer, and advocate. Mary is the life blood of SNN, always emanating joy, enthusiasm, and practical thinking. She is an extraordinary woman, mother, caregiver, friend, mentor, and beautiful human being.”

Mary has also continued to volunteer with FIS over the years as a Parent Warrior and advocating for literacy through our Read LA! Coalition.

While she’s seen LAUSD improve, Mary still hopes to see more efforts to bring parents and educators together as partners. For her part, she’s helping parents shift their mindsets to not only honor the professional expertise of educators but also their own wisdom as the experts on their children.