MAASE Unifies Community and Learning to Support Special Education Leaders

A unified community and learning experience, seamlessly integrated with MAASE’s AMS, enabled 4,500 paraeducators to be trained in just six months—and set the stage for what’s next.

The Challenge: Disparate Resources, Information Loss, and Disconnected Member Experiences

For decades, the Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education (MAASE) has served as a critical professional home for special education leaders across the state. With nearly 1,000 members including directors, supervisors, compliance leaders, and aspiring administrators, MAASE’s mission depends on connection, shared knowledge, and high-quality professional learning.

But as the organization grew, so did the complexity of delivering that experience.

MAASE relies heavily on committees and communities of practice, many of which rotate leadership every few years. Over time, this created a familiar but frustrating problem. Resources lived in different places, listservs were hosted by individuals who no longer held leadership roles, and institutional knowledge was difficult to preserve. Even with tools like Google Drive and email, continuity was hard to maintain.

At the same time, MAASE was at an inflection point. While in-person learning had always been a cornerstone of the organization, new grant-funded programs and internal capacity made it possible to expand into online learning for the first time. The challenge was not just creating learning, but determining where it should live, how it would scale, and how progress could be tracked.

The Opportunity: One, Unified Hub for Connection and Learning

MAASE recognized an opportunity to rethink the member experience from the ground up.

What if there were a single, consistent home for communities of practice and committee collaboration, shared resources that did not disappear when leadership changed, professional learning that could scale beyond in-person events, and clear visibility into member engagement?

Most importantly, what if that experience felt intuitive for members and manageable for staff?

With those goals in mind, MAASE began exploring solutions that could bring everything together, rather than adding another disconnected system.

The Solution: Solving Two Strategic Challenges with One Platform

MAASE initially began its search focused on solving the community and communication challenge. They wanted an all-member forum, a reliable place for shared resources, and a system that would remain stable through leadership transitions.

Forj stood out quickly because it addressed two critical needs at once. In addition to a robust community experience, Forj offered an integrated learning platform that allowed MAASE to expand its professional development strategy.

As Ben Hicks, Associate Executive Director at MAASE, explained, “If you want people to have one place to go instead of multiple places to go, which is what members want, they don’t want to go to more than one spot. This is a solution for that.”

Seamless integration with existing systems like Novi made adoption straightforward, and the Forj team approached implementation as a true partnership. From a structured onboarding plan to regular check-ins, MAASE felt supported at every stage. When needs evolved, Forj responded quickly, adjusting technical requirements and helping MAASE move forward without delay.

What’s Now Possible: A Scalable, Sustainable Member Experience

Today, MAASE sees their Forj-powered learning community as the central hub and “heartbeat” of the organization.

As Ben describes it, “We see this as the hub of our organization. So we’re looking at this to be the one-stop shop where you can go to get access to all the resources that we’ve got across the organization. You can get access to professional learning and you can network with all of our members.”

For members, this means a consistent place to find resources, conversations, and updates, along with flexible communication through web, email, and mobile app notifications. Learning, networking, and advocacy now live side by side in one experience.

For staff and volunteer leaders, it means less time spent managing disparate listservs, folders, and follow-ups, clearer visibility into engagement, and confidence that knowledge and communication will persist through leadership transitions.

The impact is especially clear in MAASE’s paraeducator training program. Since launching online learning through Forj, MAASE has trained approximately 4,500 paraeducators at a scale that would not have been possible before. Progress tracking that once required manual check-ins is now centralized, giving trainers and program leaders real-time insight while reducing administrative burden.

On the operational side, Forj has helped MAASE do more without adding complexity. Programs that generate revenue are easier to manage, free learning strengthens the overall member experience, and there is flexibility to offer learning to non-members in the future. The time saved behind the scenes has been a meaningful win for staff.

Just as importantly, MAASE now has the data to guide what comes next. Engagement across community and learning is measurable and trackable, and engagement has been formally embedded into the organization’s strategic plan.