From 1968 to 1998, Lynn Gross (d. 1998) was a dedicated advocate for students and parents within the PS 175 community and throughout Queens.

Gross served as the Parents Association President of PS 157 and the president of the Presidents Council of District 28. In 1980, she was elected to the Community School District 28 Board of Education. As a first-time candidate, she emphasized the need for equitable spending with limited resources.

District 28 covered an area from Rego Park to Forest Hills and south to Jamaica. By the late 1980s, Black parents voiced concerns about unequal representation and insufficient attention to issues in schools in the district's southern region. Consequently, efforts were made to diversify the board's composition. In 1993, Shirley Huntley, a longtime active parent leader, ran for the board, asserting that it had failed students in her part of the district; she won. That same year, incumbent board member and former vice president Claudette Gumbs made history as its first Black president.

Racial tensions within the district escalated in 1996 when a white school librarian at PS 80 in South Jamaica allegedly used a racial slur towards a student. Following heated public meetings where Black parents and community members demanded the librarian's dismissal, the board voted to retain her. The dissenting votes all came from the Black board members. Gross and others who voted to keep the librarian expressed disbelief that she had made the remark. This case significantly strained the long-standing friendship and political alliance between Gross and Huntley.

A year later, Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew removed Gross from the board, citing her failure to adhere to new regulations in the hiring process for a new superintendent. Local residents suspected this was retaliation for the librarian incident, as Crew had urged the board to terminate her employment. Huntley, however, maintained that all board members had been informed of the new hiring rules and that Gross had violated them. Despite an initial appeal, the Board of Education upheld her dismissal. She was granted a second appeal opportunity in the spring of 1998.

Gross passed away in December 1998. An obituary from Community School Board 28 lauded her "intelligent and caring leadership, grace, and drive."

PS 175, formerly known as the Annandale Park School, was renamed The Lynn Gross Discovery School in 2000. Joseph Seluga, a former PS 175 Principal, explained that he added "Discovery" to the name because he and Gross had encouraged students to delve deeply into the social sciences.