Dr. Emily Abrams Massey
Extended Biography
Dr. Emily Abrams Massey
Dr. Emily Abrams Massey is an experienced turnaround principal, associate superintendent, and business owner with over 25 years of leadership experience with exceptional levels of student achievement. As a native of Thomasville, Georgia, she is the daughter of career educators who served Thomasville City and Thomas County students for a combined 62 years. Dr. Abrams Massey attended Fort Valley State University and received a BS and MS in Zoology and Middles Grades Education respectively. She also attended Clark Atlanta University where she received her educational specialist degree and doctorate degree in Educational Leadership.
Dr. Massey started her career in Bibb County Schools in 1992 as a Science and ELA teacher at Appling Middle School. She moved to Atlanta in 1993 to continue her teaching career at Woodland Middle school as a science teacher. In six years, she was chosen to become a part of the leadership development program and soon became an assistant principal. In 1999, Dr. Abrams Massey moved into administration as an assistant principal of Mimosa Elementary in Roswell, GA and then Bethune Elementary in College Park, GA. In 2003, she was named principal of Seaborn Lee Elementary School in College Park, GA where she served for 10 years. Seaborn Lee was named a nine year Title One Distinguished School with many accolades and awards such as National blue Ribbon School. In 2012, she was asked to spearhead a rebranding effort for Sandy Springs Charter Middle School and in less than two years received the Superintendent’s Game Ball Trophy for leading charge and the central learning traveling award for audacious leadership. The school was removed from the state focus list in 2.5 years and Dr. Abrams Massey was awarded Principal of the Year for her learning community for the 2015-2016 SY. She is an alumni member of the Leadership Sandy Springs class of 2014, principal mentor and has provided professional development for principals and assistant principals on quantifying data, marketing 101 for schools, building the school brand, building healthy learning environments, and effective leadership.
In 2015, Dr. Abrams-Massey was named Associate Superintendent for Atlanta Public Schools where she supports the turnaround zone which encompasses 13 schools in the Douglass and Jackson clusters. She coaches principals on instructional leadership and planning, strategic planning and strategy prioritization, managing operations, fiscal management, community relations, human resource management and talent, branding, data usage and disaggregation. Under her leadership schools thrive and student achievement has increased exponentially. Dr. Abrams Massey is also the lead for the district’s day one process where she leads a division and departmental cross-functional team where she tracks over 7500 tasks required for a quality day one experiences. Her leadership has garnered the highest level of proficiency since inception with a 98% task completion rate by day one. She was also the lead for the Harvard University Turnaround Initiative for principal development and has also developed the training course and aligned simulations for the managing operations component of the aspiring leader’s program. She also leads the TNTP school turnaround support initiative in her clusters and supports countless district initiatives.
In 2017, Dr. Massey created an inspirational blog and educational consulting group for school leaders called The Principal Dynamic, LLC. The company has expanded services to include editing for authors, social media management, blog creation support, managing daily operations for high profile authors, consulting and professional development for schools, and financial management for educational leads.