Baltimore Community FellowshipsGuidelines | Fellows | Fellows Profiles
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Baltimore, Maryland
2006
For nearly seven years, Kenya Lee, a single mom of five who lives in public housing, tried to get her teenage son into special education classes. "I didn’t know how to fight the right way," she said. "I didn’t know that as a parent I had rights."
Lee's crusade for her son led her to become a parent advocate—he graduated from the Maryland Parent Leadership Institute and became PTA president at Thurgood Marshall Middle School.
Now, Lee is teaching other parents to advocate effectively. She is using her fellowship to nourish Parents with Power, a parent empowerment program she founded, aimed at helping low-income parents become more involved in their children’s education. She wants to help parents overcome barriers preventing them from being involved in their children’s education.
Through her fellowship, Lee went to different public housing projects in Northeast Baltimore to recruit parents for a GED class she organized at Thurgood Marshall. She got 17 participants for the 12-week class, and after it was over, one parent told her how much she had learned and that she wished it hadn’t ended. In September 2007, she starts another GED class for parents at Garrison Middle School. The morning and evening classes are part of a partnership Lee has formed with Baltimore City Community College. She also is working with Garrison to provide computer training for parents. And she is working with others at Garrison to create a PTA. Lee also has conducted workshops for parents, such as the one at the juvenile detention center so parents could better communicate with mental health counselors there.
Lee has become a trusted resource for various local agencies, such as Total Health Care, Mercy Medical Center, the Department of Juvenile Services and the Baltimore Public Defender’s Office, that call on her to help resolve problems for parents.
"Parents want to be part of their children’s lives and their education," she says. "They just face challenges. I’m trying to help them navigate those challenges so they can be more involved parents."
