Ithaca educators earn African-American history month award

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If Abe and Denise Lee could share a lesson with Ithaca’s youth, it would be to work hard, value education, and understand that you are the masters of your own destiny.

Thankfully for Ithaca, the Lees have shared these lessons with thousands of children over their combined 60 years teaching in the Ithaca City School District, in their community volunteer work, and in their raising four children and seven foster children.

Those were among the reasons Ithaca’s Common Council honored the Lees as this year’s recipients of the J. Diann Sams African American History Month award. The council grants the award in memory of Sams, an alderwoman and civil rights activist who died in 2005.

The Lees both grew up in the projects in Brooklyn, then met as undergraduates at Cornell University. They fell in love with Ithaca and never left. They fell in love with Ithaca and never left.

Denise Lee taught for 37.5 years in the district’s elementary schools, primarily Beverly J. Martin and Cayuga Heights, and Abe Lee taught for 20 years at Ithaca High School, after a career in architecture.

“We in our educational system have to work harder,” Denise Lee said. “Our children do have the potential to learn and we can be doing even better. When we look at other countries and how they hold education to be very highly valued, we need to come back to that and make sure that teachers are valued and that students understand that learning well is really important.”

In addition to their work in the classroom, Denise Lee founded and the Lees still oversee the Science and Mathematics Saturday Academy, which provides tutoring, field trips, and inspiration for children from third grade through high school.

Abe Lee still advises the Ithaca High School African-Latino club, and he co-founded the Parents of African-Latino Students advocacy program. They’ve volunteered in myriad other programs, including Southside Community Center and the Greater Ithaca Activities Center, and they remain active in their Greek-letter organizations: Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

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