About FATE
A Movement Built by Families, for Families.
FATE was created because too many parents were fighting alone — and losing. We exist to change that.
Our Organization
Who We Are
FATE — Families for Accountable, Transparent and Equitable Schools — is a parent and family driven organization dedicated to improving accountability, transparency, equity, and meaningful family participation in public education.
We believe families should have a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect their children. Schools and school districts should be accountable to the communities they serve, operate transparently, treat students and families equitably, and respect the educational and civil rights of students, including students with disabilities.
FATE brings parents, families, community members, advocates, educators, and other supporters together to identify systemic problems, educate families, organize communities, advocate for policy improvements, and hold educational institutions and public officials accountable.
Our Mission
Our Mission
To organize parents and families, hold public schools and school districts accountable, promote transparency and equity, protect the educational and civil rights of all students, and ensure that every family has a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect their children.
Our Origin
Why FATE Was Created
Across the country, families are navigating a public education system that too often fails to listen. Parents of students with disabilities are denied the services their children are legally entitled to. Families from low-income communities and communities of color face inequitable access to educational opportunities. School districts make consequential decisions without meaningful community input.
Individual families who speak up are frequently ignored, dismissed, or worn down by bureaucratic processes designed to outlast them. FATE was created to give families a collective voice — because what one family cannot accomplish alone, organized families can achieve together.
Special education and disability rights are a major part of our mission, but FATE is an organization concerned with accountability, transparency, equity, and parent participation throughout all of public education.
What We Stand For
Our Core Principles
Accountability
Public schools and public officials must be accountable to students, parents, families, and the communities they serve. When institutions fail, there must be consequences — and pathways for families to demand change.
Transparency
Families deserve clear and honest information about policies, decisions, spending, programs, student services, and the actions of educational institutions. Secrecy and opacity have no place in public education.
Equity
Every student deserves meaningful access to educational opportunities and services regardless of disability, income, language, background, or family circumstances. Equity is not a slogan — it is a standard we hold schools to.
Family Voice
Parents and families should have a meaningful role in decisions affecting their children and their schools. Tokenism and rubber-stamp participation are not enough. Families deserve genuine influence.
Student & Disability Rights
Students with disabilities must receive the educational opportunities, supports, services, and protections to which they are entitled under federal and state law. FATE advocates for full implementation of IDEA, Section 504, and the ADA in every school district.
Our Promise
Our Commitment to Families
FATE is not a government agency, a school district, or a law firm. We are a community of families who understand what it means to fight for a child's education — and who refuse to stop fighting. We stand with every family who has been ignored, dismissed, or told that nothing can be done. Together, we prove that wrong.