Catch-up with Our Latest Newsletter!
Back to school season is well underway! Read our latest newsletter for updates on our cohort programs, AI work, and new FREE learning series! Read the newsletter here.
What We Hope For Our Kids This School Year: Reflections from the Hendy Avenue Team
At Hendy Avenue Consulting, our daily work centers on strengthening schools, empowering educators, and supporting systems so that every student can thrive. Beyond our professional roles as strategists and coaches, we all return home each day to our own families. This dual perspective keeps our work deeply personal, grounded, and human. Across our team, our…
Ensuring a Strong Start for Talent Leaders: From “HR” to “Talent Partner”
In many school systems, the relationship between central talent teams and building-level administrators follows a seasonal rhythm: heavy, fast-paced collaboration during spring hiring, followed by a transition to administrative compliance, benefits processing, and formal evaluation checkpoints once the school year begins. When talent management operates purely from the central office, performance management becomes reactive. Leaders…
Hendy’s CAO Cohort: An Interview with Facilitator Erica Murphy
As leaders gear up for a new school year, we caught up with Erica Murphy, the facilitator of our CAO Cohort. In this interview, Erica shares her reflections on 5 years of CAO cohort facilitation, and what leaders should consider as they launch a new school year. Erica, we are about to launch the 6th…
Don’t Wait for the First 30 Days: Why the Best Coaching Plans Begin During Summer PD
The energy of August professional development is electric. Classrooms are being decorated, curriculum binders are opening, and school leaders are delivering the foundational sessions that set the academic tone for the entire school year. Traditionally, the calendar follows a predictable script: deliver whole-group summer PD, welcome students, let teachers get through September, conduct initial observations,…
Summer: The Strategic Bridge for School Leaders
For school system leaders, the “summer break” is a bit of a misnomer. While the hallways may be quieter, the mental load of leadership does not disappear. Despite leaders not “taking the summer off,” this season does offer a vital opportunity to step off the treadmill of daily operations and engage in the deep work…
Coaching the Coach: Supporting Effective Instructional Coaching
Instructional coaching can be a key lever for teacher development. High quality teacher coaching results in teachers receiving targeted, focused support that is directly relevant to their work in their classroom. But, the effectiveness of coaching is tied directly to the quality of the coach, and the extent to which the coach receives intentional, high…
Revisiting Equity in Rubrics: The Hendy Instructional Excellence Rubric
A few years ago, we published a blog post, “Collaborating to Examine Teacher Observation Rubrics for Equity,” which marked a meaningful step in Hendy’s commitment to advancing diversity, equity, inclusiveness, and justice (DEIJ) through our expertise in teacher evaluation. The post detailed our initial, intentional work to examine teacher evaluation rubrics—a primary area of our…
Building a Coherent, Network-Wide Evaluation and Coaching System: Excel Academy Charter Schools and Hendy Avenue
Since 2024, Excel Academy Charter Schools (Excel) and Hendy Avenue Consulting (Hendy) have partnered to design and implement a comprehensive, coherent system for developing, supporting, and evaluating both teachers and leaders across the network. What began as rubric refinement and committee work evolved into a holistic system that now includes: Together, this partnership moved Excel…
Transforming Teaching: An Observation Coaching Protocol
Every educator knows that a rubric alone doesn’t change a classroom—it’s the conversation around that rubric that sparks growth. If you’ve downloaded the Hendy Instructional Excellence Rubric, then you know about the accompanying observation coaching protocol. This protocol provides a precise, 30-40 minute roadmap for leaders to effectively coach and support teachers. We are excited…