MASC/MASS 2019: Conference Schedule

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Video: 2018 MASC/MASS Joint Conference

We’re excited to share with our members and colleagues a short video about the annual Joint Conference of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) and Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents (MASS), featuring highlights from the 2018 conference held in November.

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MASC/MASS 2018: Bingo Winners

MASC/MASS 2018: Speakers - Jim Braude

Broadcast Journalist and Commentator

Jim Braude is the host Greater Boston and co-host of Boston Public Radio. He has worked with co-host Margery Eagan for 18 years, first doing a TV show together at NECN then a radio show at WTKK. The duo came to WGBH in 2013.

During law school, Jim ran a small retail business in Provincetown (HUBE - Help Us Break Even!). He started his professional career as a legal services lawyer in the South Bronx handling housing and prisoners’ rights cases. He was the founder and first president of the National Organization of Legal Services Workers, a union representing staff in civil legal offices for the poor in 35 states. NOLSW helped lead the fight to preserve the national program when President Reagan proposed its abolition.

He then served as the executive director of TEAM, the Tax Equity Alliance for Massachusetts, a tax reform coalition, during which time he led many ballot campaigns, including the defeat of what would have been the largest budget cut on the ballot in U.S. history. He published Otherwise, a magazine on American politics, and then served as a Cambridge City Councilor.

Jim graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and New York University’s Law School.

MASC/MASS 2018: Speakers - Andrea Cabral

Former Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety and Sheriff of Suffolk County; CEO, Ascend

Andrea J. Cabral is the CEO of Ascend, an adult use cannabis company based in MA. Her leadership in Ascend follows a 28-year career in government and public service. Most recently, she served as the Commonwealth’s Executive Secretary of Public Safety in the Administration of Governor Deval Patrick where she oversaw 14 statewide public safety agencies, including the Massachusetts State Police, the Department of Correction, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, the Parole Board and the Massachusetts National Guard. From 2003 to 2013, she was the twice-elected Sheriff of Suffolk County and the first female sheriff in Massachusetts’ history.

As an Assistant District Attorney in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office from 1993 to 2002, Ms. Cabral was Chief of Suffolk County’s first major felony Domestic Violence Unit, Senior Prosecutor for all civil rights cases and Chief of District Court and Community Prosecutions. She authored the state’s first continuing legal education manual on restraining orders and is also a former Assistant Attorney General and Assistant District Attorney in the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office.

Ms. Cabral is an Eisenhower Fellow and served for 3 years as one of 18 national experts appointed to the Science Advisory Board (SAB) by United States Attorney General Eric Holder. She is a former member of the Advisory Board of the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy and the Governing Board of the Mass Mentoring Partnership and currently sits on the Massachusetts Lawyer’s Weekly Board of Editors. In 2017, she was appointed by Attorney General Maura Healey to the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission’s Cannabis Advisory Board. Ms. Cabral also provides weekly commentary and legal analysis on WGBH Boston Public Radio.

She is a graduate of Boston College and Suffolk University Law School.

Ms. Cabral is an Eisenhower Fellow and served as one of 18 national experts appointed to the Science Advisory Board (SAB) by United States Attorney General Eric Holder. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy, the Editorial Board of Massachusetts Lawyer’s Weekly and the Governing Board of the Mass Mentoring Partnership.

Ms. Cabral is the co-host of BPR Weekend and a weekly contributor on the Jim and Margery Show.

She is a graduate of Boston College and Suffolk University Law School.

MASC/MASS 2018: Speakers - Dr. Marc Brackett

Founding Director, Yale University Center for Emotional Intelligence

Marc Brackett, Ph.D., is founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and Professor in the Child Study Center at Yale University. His grant-funded research focuses on: (1) the role of emotions and emotional intelligence in learning, decision making, relationship quality, and mental health; (2) the measurement of emotional intelligence; (3) best practices for teaching emotional intelligence; and (3) the influences of emotional intelligence training on children’s and adults’ effectiveness, health, creativity, and both school and workplace climate. Marc has published 125 scholarly articles and has received numerous awards, including the Joseph E. Zins Award for his research on social and emotional learning and an honorary doctorate from Manhattanville College. He also is a distinguished scientist on the National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development.

Marc is the lead developer of RULER (an acronym for the five key emotion skills of recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotions) is an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning that has been adopted by over 1,500 public, charter, and private pre-school to high schools across the United States and in other countries, including Australia, China, England, Italy, Mexico, Spain, and Sri Lanka. RULER infuses social and emotion learning into the immune system of schools by enhancing how school administrators lead, educators teach, students learn, and families parent. Research has shown that RULER boosts academic performance, decreases school problems like bullying, enriches classroom climates, reduces teacher stress and burnout, and enhances teacher instructional practices.

Marc regularly consults with large companies, including Facebook and Google on best practices for integrating the principles of emotional intelligence into training and product design. With Facebook, he has developed a number of products, including: social resolution tools to help adults and youth resolve online conflict, the bullying prevention hub to support educators, families, and teens, and InspirED, an open-source resource center to support high school students in leading positive change in their schools.

Dr. Brackett will be the featured speaker at the Thursday General Session at 10:45am.