Mia Crawford-Gray is a Kansas native who moved to Omaha, Nebraska, in 1989, immediately after graduating from the University of Kansas with a B. A. degree in psychology. She served as an educational paraprofessional at her son’s elementary school, was formally trained by Omaha Public Schools as a family advocate, and currently shares a business with her retired husband that provides tutoring and administrative services to a local mentoring program.

Mia worked as a family advocate and researcher for the Justice for Kids Initiative, a grassroots program supported by the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation. She combined her passion for advocacy with her talent for using research and data to tell evidence-based narratives that demonstrate how current educational policies and practices affect the most vulnerable children. As an advocate, she helped educate parents who were often outnumbered and uninformed about district policies, their rights, and the rights of their children and attended school meetings related to discipline to support them in seeking solutions that were best for the student(s) vs. the school administrative adults involved. During her tenure with JKI, the organization unapologetically and persistently highlighted the disproportional effects that out-of-school suspensions were having on Black children starting as young as four years old. It was instrumental in passing a suspension law ban for all Pre-K through 2nd grade students in Nebraska. As an advocate, she helped educate parents who were often outnumbered and uninformed about district policies, their rights, and the rights of their children and attended school meetings related to discipline to support them in seeking solutions that were best for the student(s) vs. the school administrative adults involved.

Education for Black Students.