FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – June 9, 2025
JACKSON, Miss. – Angela Bass will rejoin Mississippi First as its new Executive Director, effective July 8, the organization announced today. Angela hails from Tunica, MS, and she was the Deputy Director of Policy for Mississippi First from 2014-2019, directing several research initiatives, co-authoring policy and research reports, and providing technical assistance to school districts and the Mississippi Department of Education alike.
Angela has long held a deep commitment to improving education. She graduated from Spelman College in 2008 and joined Teach For America in the Greater MS Delta, teaching secondary math at Arkansas’s Forrest City High School. During this time, she became interested in education policy after she served as the first summer intern for Mississippi First in 2009. After TFA, she went on to complete her Master’s Degree in Education Policy and Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Prior to joining Mississippi First’s staff in 2014, Angela taught in Mississippi at Tunica Middle School and Horn Lake High School, served as a Fulbright exchange teacher in Tanzania, and was on the founding staff of KIPP Memphis Collegiate High School as a Dean of Students.
All the while, Angela completed her Doctorate in Educational Leadership at the University of Mississippi.
For the past six years, Bass has been continuing to move the needle towards a Mississippi first in education, first as the founding Executive Director of the Mississippi Early Learning Alliance and then as the Mississippi Regional Executive Director of RePublic Schools. She also served on the Board of Education for the State of Mississippi from 2020 until 2022.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Angela Bass back to Mississippi First, where she will draw from her wealth of knowledge to not only build on our previous work but to reenvision the possibilities and lead us to an even brighter future,” said Tim Abram, Chair of the Board at Mississippi First. “Mississippi has improved markedly in the last two decades, and we’re excited to see how Angela and the whole team will accelerate these gains in the coming years.”
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About Mississippi First
Mississippi First is a nonprofit organization committed to transforming education policy and practice to ensure every child in the state has access to high-quality early education, public charter schools, and highly effective teachers. Since 2008, Mississippi First has been a leading advocate for state-funded pre-K expansion and education reform. Learn more at mississippifirst.org.
Media Contact:
Brendan Lowe
brendan@eachdaycomms.org
856.904.1693