• Somerset High's Donald Rebello, president of a statewide organization of school administrators, is leading the charge for a group many can't quite appreciate: principals.
SOMERSET
-- It's not easy being a high school principal these days.
If the students like you -- and that's a big if -- you've still got to balance the needs and demands of parents, teachers, fellow administrators, and the local police.
It can get lonely out there.
But Somerset High School Principal Donald Rebello is trying to help. As president of the Massachusetts Secondary Schools Administrators Association, Rebello is working to give principals across the state a little breathing room -- as well as legal, curricular, and contractual advice and support.
"I think principals today see themselves as being out on a limb, and they're looking for as much legal and emotional support as they can muster," Rebello said.
The MSSAA boasts more than 1,150 members, up from 900 just five years ago, and says it now represents about 80 percent of secondary school administrators statewide.
Principals, unlike their counterparts inside the classrooms, lack union representation. Rebello said that this has led to numerous incidents across the state where principals were simply dismissed without adequate explanation or justification. The MSSAA is the closest thing to a collective bargaining organization available to principals.
"We want to offer our members a little more security than they currently have," he said.
Rebello serves as the organization's spokesman and representative to the state, and he has been busy this year. Since he began his one-year term in July, Rebello has made increasing MSSAA's visibility a priority.
He has hired a public relations adviser to help sculpt an image and a voice for the organization, and has been a familiar face on Beacon Hill, advising various state organizations and officials on a variety of subjects.
The MSSAA has been vocal in the ongoing controversy over the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests, decrying the decision to mandate that MCAS be a graduation requirement.
"We've advocated for the use of alternative assessments. You can't rely on one test that might be narrowly focused," Rebello said, adding that he thinks that the test shouldn't be a graduation requirement until it has been administered for several more years, and all the kinks worked out.
Rebello and the MSSAA have also been advising the Massachusetts Partners Group, an umbrella organization composed of numerous teachers' and parents' organizations, on the touchy subject of teacher evaluations.
Rebello began teaching social studies at Somerset High School 30 years ago, rising through the ranks to guidance counselor, guidance chairman and principal in 1991.
He served as a vice president for MSSAA for three years before rising to its presidency last summer. Rebello was also named Massachusetts' principal of the year last year.
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