History

Under the direction of MSSAA leadership team chaired by Past President Dana Brown and MESPA President Kirk Downing, negotiations and dialogue ensued with both Association’s leadership committees as to the merit and benefits of a Unified State Association. This initiative resulted in favorable votes from the membership of both Associations and effective August 1, 2017 the birth of the Massachusetts School Administrators’ Association (MSAA) was ratified.

In the period since then, new members have been encouraged to join MSAA standing committees and enabled to take on leadership roles including membership on the Board of Directors.

Massachusetts, widely recognized as a national leader in public education, now faces the future with a unified front of all professionals in administrative positions in PreK-12 schools. Since these are the positions that can most easily shape policy and drive progress, the educational future for MSAA and this Commonwealth is very bright.

About MSSAA:

• MSSAA grew out of the former Massachusetts Secondary School Principals’ Association (MSSPA) which was founded in 1884, and is recognized as the oldest educational association in the nation
• MSSPA functioned for many years as a social club
• Around 1906, MSSPA began to have professionally planned meetings
• By 1914, MSSPA had 131 members
• In 1914, MSSPA established a group called the Massachusetts High School Athletic Association to supervise athletics
• In 1915, MSSPA changed its name to the High School Principals’ Association of Massachusetts
• In 1978, the Massachusetts Secondary School Administrators’ Association (MSSAA) was created to provide a broad range of services, notably Professional Development and the Leadership Licensure
• Program (LLP); at the same time, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) was formed to regulate and govern athletics
• In 1995, the former Middle Level Association (MMLSAA) was assimilated into MSSAA

About MESPA:

• Founded in 1926 with 38 Charter members
•  Included educators from all New England States except Rhode Island
• Originally known as the Hyannis Summer School Association
• In 1979, hired its first Executive Director
• In 1991, purchased its first headquarters in Marlborough, MA
• MESPA’s unique offerings to their membership of over 1,200 included professional development sessions, an administrator licensure program begun in 1991 and a Technology Center that provided training to hundreds of educators over a ten year period from 1995-2005.

From: Centennial History of the Massachusetts Secondary School Administrators’ Association 1884 – 1984
by Bertram H. Holland

The MSSAA is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, statewide professional association of secondary school administrators in the United States.

The organization now known as the Massachusetts Secondary School Administrators’ Association got its start in 1884 when a group of high school principals met to form the High School Masters’ Club of Massachusetts (HSMCM ). The club was primarily a social gathering to promote fellowship among the members.

The first officers were elected in 1885 with William F. Bradbury of Cambridge as president and George E. Gay of Malden as secretary.

Anyone who reads the minutes and other documents of the Association from its earliest days to the present time cannot help but be struck by the contrast. When the founders came together to start the Association in 1884, they surely could not have envisioned the extent to which their modest club would grow.

The wide ranging scope of the Association’s activities today developed gradually in parallel with the growth and complexity of the high school principalship. The dozens of committees created to treat the many facets of secondary school administration include terms that the Founders would not even have heard of.

Since the formation in the Bay State of the first of its kind state association of secondary school principals, similar associations have been formed in all of the fifty states. These state associations have brought steadily increasing benefits indirectly to the students in the high schools and directly to the secondary school administrators in each state. In the words of Governor William Bradford in his 1647 “History of Plimoth Plantation”; “As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea in some measure unto our whole nation.”

On July 1, 1995 a new Massachusetts Secondary School Administrators’ Association was formed when it formally joined with the Massachusetts Middle Level Administrators’ Association. This new MSSAA now is the professional association for middle school and high school administrators in public and private schools. MSSAA is affiliated with the National Association of Secondary School Principals ( NASSP ) with both middle and high school principals presently serving on their national boards.