The Midsouth Association of Independent Schools (MAIS) is a consortium of schools in

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

and

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

. It is responsible for accreditation of its member private schools as well as governing athletic competition for its member schools. It was founded in 1968 by a group of

segregation academies Segregation academies are private schools in the Southern United States that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend desegregated public schools. They were founded between 1954, when the U.S. ...

. The association also operates two other organizations, the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools Educational Association and the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools Coaches Association.

History

Then named the Mississippi Private School Association, it was founded in 1968 as an accrediting agency for

. Many of those schools no longer exist, while others have minorities enrolled and are accredited by other bodies such as the

Southern Association of Colleges and Schools The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) is an educational accreditor recognized by the United States Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. This agency accredits over 13,000 public and priv ...

. 1987 marked the first time a Black student played on any MPSA boys' sports team, and in 2000 Christ Missionary and Industrial College High School became the first Black school to be granted membership. The first MPSA sanctioned football game involving an all-black school took place in 2000. In July 2009, the organization changed its name to the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools, and in 2019 changed it again to the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools to reflect the inclusion of schools in Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee. In 1992, the

Louisiana Independent School Association The Louisiana Independent School Association (1970-1992), more commonly known as LISA, was an athletic association created to offer interscholastic sports at all-white segregation academies in the state of Louisiana. The organization is no longe ...

, also created by segregation academies, merged into the MPSA.

Citizens' Council connections

Historian Joseph Crespino has stated that members of the

White Citizens' Council The Citizens' Councils (commonly referred to as the White Citizens' Councils) were an associated network of white supremacist, segregationist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South and created as part of a white backlash a ...

"doubtless" played a role in the founding of the Association. Sociologist Kenneth Andrews says that the MPSA built "on the earlier foundation of the Citizens' Council and the Council School Foundation."

Classification

The MAIS, until 2019, divided its schools into five classifications, in which Academy AAAA represented the largest of the private schools, while the 8-man league represented the smallest schools. In 2019, after several smaller schools dropped down to 8-man football, the MAIS moved to six classifications, like that of its public school counterpart, the

Mississippi High School Activities Association The Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) is the official sanctioning body of all public and some private junior high and high school academic and athletic competitions in the state of Mississippi. It is a non-profit organization ...

. Class 6A would consist of a single district of the six largest private schools in the MAIS: Jackson Prep, Jackson Academy,

Madison-Ridgeland Academy Madison-Ridgeland Academy (MRA, Madison-Ridgeland) is a private, co-educational school in Madison, Mississippi, for students from K-3 through 12th grade. It was founded in 1969 as a segregation academy. There are 4 divisions; the Kindergarten (K ...

Parklane Academy Parklane Academy is a private Protestant school from grades Kindergarten through 12th grade located in McComb, Mississippi. It was founded in 1970 as a segregation academy. Parklane is a member of the Mississippi Association of Independent Sc ...

Hartfield Academy Hartfield Academy (or simply known as Hartfield) is an independent private school in Rankin County, Mississippi, United States. The school hosts K3–12th and has two campuses, West and East. Hartfield's main west campus, located in Flowood, M ...

, and Presbyterian Christian School. The other 50 schools that support 11-man football were then divided as thus: the top third would be Class 5A, the middle third as Class 4A, and the remaining 11-man football schools would be Class 3A. The 8-man schools, 28 in number, were then divided into Class 2A (the top half of the 8-man schools) and Class 1A (the bottom half of the 8-man schools).

References

External links

Midsouth Association of Independent Schools
{{authority control Private and independent school organizations in the United States Segregation academies in Mississippi Private schools in Mississippi Education segregation in Mississippi School accreditors Educational institutions established in 1968 1968 establishments in Mississippi