Addressing Learning Gaps Cohorts
The Challenge: The global pandemic has significantly impacted teaching and learning, leading to significant learning loss and increased inequities. There is a shared assumption that students, particularly those students who were already underserved, have fallen behind. The challenge is that (1) we don’t yet know how far behind they are, (2) we don’t fully understand the social and emotional needs of children who have experienced this unprecedented event, (3) some students may have benefitted from remote learning in ways that we don’t yet understand, and (4) we don’t yet know how to best meet their needs as we look to the upcoming school year.
Theory of Action: In unprecedented times, we find the most value comes from connecting with others wrestling with similar challenges and working together to understand the problem, create a strategy, and to plan for action. We believe that by bringing together leaders from similar school networks and districts through a series of facilitated problem-solving, strategy, and planning sessions, we can significantly improve outcomes for students.
Introducing the Addressing Learning Gaps Working Groups: In the Spring and Summer of 2021, Hendy Avenue Consulting is convening two small cohorts of charter school networks from across the country to come together over a series of five sessions to problem solve and action plan around the challenges of assessing and addressing learning gaps for the 2021-2022 school year. Through the cohort experience, each network is creating its own unique and actionable academic strategic plan.
Working Group Participants: We are so honored to have 9 incredible charter school networks, each with exceptional academics leaders, choosing to join our program. We started with a first cohort in March 2021 and given the demand, added a second cohort in April. Our wonderful cohort members coming from the following networks:
- Ascend (K-12, Brooklyn, NY)
- Breakthrough Public Schools (K-8, Cleveland, OH)
- Coney Island Prep (K-12; Brooklyn)
- DREAM Charter Schools (K-12, New York, NY)
- Explore Schools (K-8; Brooklyn)
- Hebrew Public Schools (K-8; NYC and Philadelphia)
- KIPP Colorado Schools (K-12, Denver, CO)
- KIPP New Jersey/Miami (K-12, Camden and Newark, NJ and Miami, FL)
- Mastery Charter Schools (K-12; Philadelphia and Camden)
Impact: Our first cohort has just completed their 3rd session and our second cohort has just completed their 2nd session. In these sessions, Chief Academic Officers and their teams of 2-4 others, review research, learn from best practices, share ideas and receive feedback from leaders in other networks, and develop comprehensive plans for prioritized content, academic strategy, assessment, staffing, training, change management, communications, and more. The Hendy team is proud of our role in supporting the academic leaders who are ensuring that all children are successful in the years to come.