Posts by Hendy Avenue
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 students are starting a new year at every step of the PK-12 span: from welcoming a new baby and guiding curious Pre-K learners, to Hendy kids in Kindergarten and 2nd grade, to middle elementary (3rd and 4th), to middle schoolers in 6th and 7th grades, and to the oldest Hendy kid starting high school. As a new school year unfolds, we find ourselves reflecting on what we hope each milestone brings for our own children—not just academically, but socially, emotionally, and personally.
Across every grade level, we hope our children learn how to learn. We want them to develop the critical thinking skills necessary to navigate a complex world with curiosity and confidence. Equal to academic growth is our hope for character and connection. We want our kids to practice quiet kindness—the kind that expects no audience or praise. We hope they build meaningful friendships, discover how to be a good friend in return, and understand that sharing is about exchanging ideas and perspectives, not merely passing crayons or pencils across a desk. Ultimately, we hope to see them cultivate self-directed learning and genuine independence, taking pride in the journey of becoming who they are.
These hopes remind us why we do the work we do at Hendy Avenue Consulting. When we partner with leaders to design high-quality instruction and supportive school systems, we are keeping every child’s potential at the heart of our work.
To all the educators, leaders, students, and families stepping into this new school year: we wish you a year filled with discovery, growth, resilience, and joy.
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 only connect when an educator is struggling, when an emergency vacancy opens, or when mid-year intent-to-return surveys reveal unexpected attrition risks. Sustainable talent strategy requires stepping out of spreadsheets and into school buildings alongside principals and instructional coaches during the earliest weeks of the school year.
By prioritizing early norming, joint classroom walkthroughs, and collaborative talent reviews in the first 3 months of the school year, talent leaders shift performance management from a compliance hurdle into a proactive, trust-building retention lever.
1. Calibrating Expectations Through Early Walkthroughs and Norming
Clear, equitable evaluation systems require a shared definition of effective instructional practice. When building leaders and network talent teams conduct joint classroom walkthroughs during the first month of school, they establish critical alignment:
- Eliminating Evaluator Isolation: New school administrators and department chairs often navigate observation rubrics alone. Walking classrooms side-by-side with talent leaders grounds rubric criteria in real-time practice and builds evaluative confidence.
- Norming on Low-Inference Evidence: Early calibration ensures that feedback across different campuses or grade-level teams is grounded in objective evidence rather than subjective impressions.
- De-Escalating Evaluation Anxiety: When staff see talent leaders engaged in routine, developmental visits early in the year, it normalizes feedback as a standard professional practice rather than a signal of formal scrutiny.
2. Early Talent Reviews: Spotting Trends Before They Become Vacancies
Waiting until mid-year or late winter to conduct structured talent reviews leaves schools with little time to intervene when staffing friction arises. Scheduling proactive, 30-to-45-minute talent check-ins in September and October enables school leaders and talent partners to assess staffing health across three key dimensions:
- High-Leverage Growth Opportunities: Identifying early-career educators who are excelling and need stretch leadership roles, pathway development, or mentorship responsibilities to stay engaged and retained.
- Targeted Coaching Needs: Surfacing individuals or instructional departments that need immediate, structured support before small gaps become persistent performance challenges.
- Staffing Stability and Staff Climate Indicators: Reviewing operational workload distribution, grade-level dynamics, and early attendance or climate signals to address burnout before it leads to mid-year departures.
3. Becoming a True Strategic Partner in “People Work”
When talent teams position themselves as collaborative problem-solvers rather than top-down auditors, the cultural dynamic shifts across the entire organization School leaders face an overwhelming array of day-to-day operational demands. Having a dedicated talent partner who actively helps them analyze team dynamics, structure support plans, and anticipate staffing needs creates the bandwidth principals need to focus on student learning.
An Early-Fall Action Plan for Talent Teams
To build a proactive, shoulder-to-shoulder talent model this fall, consider embedding these three practices into your early-year schedule:
- Schedule Joint “Norming Walks” by Week 4: Spend a half-day with each building leadership team visiting classrooms, comparing observation notes, and aligning on coaching priorities.
- Institute (at minimum) Monthly 1:1 Talent Check-Ins: Replace ad-hoc emails with structured, standing touchpoints focused purely on team health, retention risks, and coaching plan effectiveness.
- Aggregate Network Trends for Targeted Professional Learning: Use notes from early walkthroughs and reviews to identify system-wide development needs
When talent leaders start the year present in the hallways, performance management becomes an authentic investment in educator success. Proactive partnership keeps staffing plans stable, empowers school leaders, and ensures teachers receive the clarity and support they need to thrive.
Interested in chatting more about all things talent in school systems? Reach out to Hendy President, Jessica Wilson, for a call – jessicawilson@hendyavenue.com
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 CAO cohort! It’s hard to believe. What do you love most about facilitating this cohort and being in the room with these academic leaders year after year?
When I worked in one system I learned deeply one approach to leading the instructional side of a system. As the facilitator of the CAO cohort, I get to peer inside 6-10 different organizations and learn from their brilliance. We all do similar work and it’s infinitely helpful to see how different creative minds approach similar challenges. I always learn so much.
Looking back at where CAOs were focused in Year 1 of our cohort versus now, what are the most pressing, complex challenges you’re hearing from academic leaders right now as they step into this school year?
Lately, many school leaders seem to be focused around 3 key things:
- Improving math achievement, at scale across their system
- AI – how do we teach students responsible AI literacy when we are learning and things are constantly changing? Is this the right place to focus our limited resources?
- Developing systems and teams that focus on people development and outlast the direct impact of CAOs.
I really enjoy learning from our CAOs about how they are approaching these priorities, and bringing my own experience with our clients to the conversation.
One of the greatest benefits of this cohort is cross-pollination across different systems. What is one area where you’re most excited to see these CAOs problem-solve and learn from one another this year?
Strategic Thinking. It permeates everything a CAO does and underpins any good initiative or focus. At the end of the day, the specific focus that a CAO takes doesn’t actually matter if they are not approaching the work strategically.
What is the single most important mindset or piece of advice you find yourself reinforcing with CAOs as they step into a brand-new school year?
Be intentional. Prioritize and focus on what matters most. And lead with clarity.
Thanks so much Erica! We can’t wait to hear how the CAO cohort learns and grows together this year. Interested in learning more about Hendy’s cohort programs? Contact Jess at jessicawilson@hendyavenue.com.
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, and then roll out individual coaching priorities.
By waiting until the first baseline formal observation cycle to tailor support, leaders lose nearly two and a half weeks of critical instructional runway.
Summer PD is more than content delivery – it is the first and best formative assessment window of the year.
The Dual Purpose of Summer PD: Baseline Content + Diagnostic Data
Every school needs whole-group baseline training. Setting a unified vision for school culture, unpacking curriculum scope and sequences, and aligning on your school’s strategic priorities for the year are critical.
For instructional leaders, remember: every collaborative planning session, lesson rehearsal, PLC, and larger PD session provides actionable data about adult learners:
- Lesson Rehearsals & Role-Plays: Who effortlessly commands the room with strong pacing and crisp directions? Who needs immediate support with tone, precision of directions, or check-for-understanding techniques?
- Intellectual Prep & Unit Studies: Who deeply understands the conceptual arc of the curriculum? Who needs targeted support unpacking the mechanics of a lesson before delivering it?
- System & Routine Setups: Who quickly translates operational expectations into classroom execution? Who is struggling with physical flow and classroom management systems?
Looking at summer professional development through a diagnostic lens allows leaders to strike the right balance: establishing a common standard for all staff while gathering the observational evidence needed to differentiate support on Day 1.
Fast-Tracking Development: Coaching as an Investment, Not a Consequence
Framing real-time, responsive support matters. Rolling out a targeted development plan during the first weeks of school should never feel like a deficit-based consequence or a precursor to formal evaluation. Approached through a genuine growth mindset, immediate support is a direct investment in a teacher’s confidence and success.
When leaders wait until mid-fall to flag gaps that were visible during August lesson rehearsals, it creates unnecessary frustration for both the educator and their students. Moving quickly normalizes continuous improvement. Deploying action-oriented, fast-cycle coaching right out of the gate eliminates early-year guesswork. It equips teachers with concrete, bite-sized practice before small habits harden into year-long hurdles.
The Strong Start Checklist for August
To capitalize on this window before students enter the building, build in three immediate structural practices:
- Audit Summer Session Artifacts: Review the lesson plans, intellectual prep notes, and role-play feedback generated during PD to identify common team-wide strengths and individual coaching priorities.
- Draft Day 1 Coaching Focus Areas: Ensure every new or transitioning teacher has one concrete, bite-sized instructional habit to focus on during Week 1 (e.g., strong start routines, economy of language, 100% attention).
- Schedule Week 1 Touchpoints Immediately: Put quick 15-minute observation and feedback loops on the calendar for the very first week of instruction, rather than waiting for formal post-observation conferences in October.
When schools treat summer PD as both a foundational launchpad and a real-time learning lab, they don’t have to wait for early-fall missteps to begin meaningful development. Meeting educators where they are on Day 1 creates the fastest path to teacher success and student achievement.
Hendy <3’s coaching! To learn more about our coaching and professional development offerings, reach out to Hendy President Jessica Wilson at jessicawilson@hendyavenue.com.
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 quality support from their own leaders. Over the past several years, we’ve had the privilege to not just support coaches directly, but to also support the school leaders who are responsible for developing instructional coaches. (Read more about our work in instructional coaching here, here and here).
Many of our school system partners have invested time and resources into instructional coaching. But, it’s not enough to simply identify instructional coaches and set them to work. In our work supporting these systems, we have found that coaches often struggle with fundamental issues, such as lacking a consistent coaching template, talking too much during meetings, giving vague feedback, or avoiding direct confrontation. Intentional development—which requires leaders to observe the coach in action to identify strengths and opportunities—ensures instructional coaches acquire the precise, targeted skills needed to drive meaningful improvements in teaching and learning.
Here are actionable ways leaders we have seen leaders intentionally support their instructional coaches:
Focus on Structure and Efficiency
- Establish Consistency: Require coaches to use a consistent coaching template for all sessions, building on it weekly to keep resources organized.
- Shift the Cognitive Load: Use a shared document and have the teacher being coached take notes and synthesize ideas instead of the coach doing the heavy lifting.
Focus on Clarity and Concrete Action
- Identify Highest Leverage Focus: Coach coaches to narrow their focus to the single highest leverage action step for a teacher. The test is: “if the teacher changed that one thing tomorrow, would the lesson be materially better?”.
- Model Direct Feedback: Role-play delivering direct feedback. The clear structure could be: “When you [specific teacher action], I saw [specific student outcome]. Moving forward, try: [specific new action],” avoiding “softening” language like “maybe”.
- Practice Doing the Work: Support coaches to ensure that half of every coaching meeting is spent doing the work (e.g., writing an exemplar, scripting questions, stand & deliver practice) rather than just talking about it.
- Use Bumper Questions: Instead of broad, open-ended questions (e.g., “What went well?”), use questions with “bumpers” that guide the teacher to key moments, such as: “What did you notice most students did when you asked them to stop and jot after paragraph 1?”.
Focus on Trusting Relationships and Accountability
- Balance Praise and Push: Ensure every coaching conversation follows a 3:1 rule, providing three pieces of specific praise before moving to one, high-leverage constructive push.
- Lead with Priority: Coach coaches to maintain focus on the highest leverage gap they observed. If the teacher requests a different focus, the coach should acknowledge it but redirect the conversation: “Today I need us to focus on [your highest priority] because I saw [student impact]”.
- Maintain Accountability: End every coaching meeting by scheduling a specific accountability check-in (e.g., “I’ll be back tomorrow/this week to see this in action. What period should I come to observe?”) and then consistently following through.
Instructional coaching can be a critical lever to drive improvement in teaching and learning in classrooms. But this investment must come with intentional support for the instructional coaches driving the improvement. Are you interested in exploring how to improve instructional coaching in your school or system? Reach out to Jess to talk.
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 influence—through an anti-racist lens.
Revisiting this work now offers a valuable opportunity to reflect on what we’ve learned, how the conversation has evolved, and the critical importance of sustained, deeper engagement in this area.
What We Set Out to Do (And Why It Still Matters)
Our initial thesis was simple: teacher evaluation rubrics, as drivers of teacher practice and leader coaching, must be improved to actively dismantle rather than inadvertently uphold dominant (and/or oppressive) norms, values, and culture.
To that end, we engaged a powerful, identity and role-diverse team of experts to critically examine four existing rubrics.
Our original goals for the examination remain – to identify:
- Language or expectations in the rubric that values white dominant norms, values, and culture over those of other racial groups;
- Language in the rubric that is supportive of equity (specific practices, mindset cues for teachers, etc.); and
- Missed opportunities in the rubric to advance equity of instruction for students.
Evolving Our Perspective: From Identification to Action
Since publishing the original post, our understanding and commitment have deepened in several key ways:
- Beyond “A Separate Indicator”: While our original piece discussed structural features like including DEIJ as a separate indicator versus baking it in, we now advocate for the latter. Placing equity in a single section risks making it a compliance check. Equity must be the lens through which all teaching indicators are viewed—from classroom environment and culture to instructional planning and assessment.
- The Role of the Student: Our initial examination surfaced the tension between student-focused and teacher-focused rubrics. Today, we emphasize that any equitable rubric must center the student experience. It’s not just about what the teacher does, but what students experience as a result, particularly students who have been historically marginalized. This requires rubrics to be exceptionally clear on the visible evidence of equitable student outcomes and agency.
The Hendy Instructional Excellence Rubric provides a vision of excellence in teaching and learning across K-12 classrooms of all subjects. It intentionally focuses on both teacher actions and student outcomes as a way to keep students at the center of the work. It also integrates equity as a lens across all indicators in the rubric.
Looking Ahead: Guidance for the Next Phase
Since this initial examination of equity in rubrics, and our publishing of the Hendy Instructional Excellence Rubric, our core belief has only strengthened: improving teacher observation rubrics is an essential step toward creating anti-racist schools where all students can succeed. The tool itself is powerful not just for evaluation, but for professional learning—it sets the expectation for what quality teaching means. And if that expectation doesn’t actively advance equity, it is actively hindering it.
We continue to be energized by the opportunity to engage with partners on this critical work. If you or your team are ready to move from identifying bias to designing for equity in your evaluation tools, or you want to give the Hendy Instructional Excellence Rubric a try, please reach out.
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:
- A comprehensive Teacher Observation and Feedback Tool
- A School-Leader Evaluation System, including a year-long Leader Development & Evaluation Framework (LEDF) pilot
- A codified, network-wide instructional coaching model
- Embedded leadership coaching for senior academic leaders
Together, this partnership moved Excel from tool design to system implementation — aligning evaluation, coaching, and leadership development under one shared theory of change.
The Goals of the Work
Across phases (October 2024–June 2026), the partnership between Hendy and Excel centered on three major goals.
1. Articulate a Clear Vision of Excellence
Excel sought to define:
- What excellent teaching looks like.
- What excellent school leadership looks like.
- What excellent instructional coaching looks like.
- How all three connect in one coherent system.
Excel partnered with Hendy to design several tools and frameworks to codify these definitions. Together, Excel and Hendy created:
- A comprehensive Teacher Evaluation Tool – The Excel Observation Rubric
- A comprehensive School-Leader Evaluation System
- A unified Leader Development & Evaluation Framework (LEDF) pilot for 2025–26
The goal was not just documentation — it was clarity. Leaders and teachers needed a shared understanding of excellence and growth. These frameworks provide that clarity.
2. Operationalize the Vision Through Implementation
While quality tools that define excellence is a start, implementation of that definition with aligned support is what really changes practice. In 2025-26, Hendy and Excel’s work shifted explicitly toward operationalization of these frameworks. This work has included piloting the LEDF across the network. This pilot includes:
- Training for evaluators.
- Collecting feedback through surveys and focus groups.
- Refining guidebooks based on that feedback, and building supporting materials.
The work has also included executing on a coherent instructional coaching model across the network. Hendy has worked with Excel instructional coaches to:
- Train coaches and leaders on a defined coaching model.
- Conduct site visits at schools to support coaching and development around elements of the coaching model.
- Host recurring professional development and office hours to provide both proactive and responsive support for coaching.
3. Build Internal Leadership Capacity
Beyond tools, Excel wanted to refine leadership muscle. Over the two years of our partnership, Hendy has supported building Excel leadership capacity through leadership coaching for the Managing Director of Academic Leadership and the Director of Talent. Our work has also included ongoing weekly strategic check-ins with the Chief Schools Officer to ensure coherence and alignment across the work. And, Hendy has worked to develop internal facilitation capacity by creating training sessions that Excel leaders are supported to deliver directly to staff. The long-term goal of this support is to ensure that Excel can sustain excellence without the support of an external partner.
The Partnership Model
The success of the partnership between Excel and Hendy is rooted not just in goals and deliverables, but in the nature of the partnership.
1. Strategic, Not Transactional
The weekly check-ins with senior leadership created a rhythm of decision-making, troubleshooting, prioritization and iteration. This work is not “deliver and disappear” consulting. It is embedded strategy work.
2. Co-Construction with Stakeholders
Committee structures were central in both teacher and leader system design. Excel leaders participated in design sessions; provide feedback; pilot components; and refine language and tools. Co-construction has created buy-in to the strategies, and helped to avoid change fatigue so common when new initiatives are implemented.
3. Change Management Embedded Throughout
Each of Hendy’s scopes of work with Excel anticipate change-management challenges:
- Balance feedback with decisiveness.
- Avoid overwhelming stakeholders.
- Clarify messaging.
- Stage implementation in phases.
Communication drafts, surveys, focus groups, and steering committees are intentional levers — not afterthoughts.
Results to Date
Excel’s effort to define excellence and implement systems is ongoing. By mid-pilot (SY25–26), Excel has:
- An embedded and system-wide adopted Teacher Observation Rubric.
- A unified leader evaluation framework.
- A year-long pilot generating structured feedback on the LEDF.
- A structured coaching model with ongoing PD.
- Internal leaders trained to implement and refine systems.
- Clear alignment between coaching and evaluation.
The system now connects: Teacher Practice → Coaching → Leader Practice → Evaluation → Growth
Conclusion
Over two years, Hendy and Excel have moved from defining excellence to implementing excellence.
The work has shifted Excel from:
- Tools → Systems
- Isolated PD → Coherent development arc
- Informal coaching → Codified coaching model
- Static evaluation → Iterative pilot with feedback loops
The next phase (SY26–27) positions Excel for full implementation of a coherent, internally sustained development system. Hendy is thrilled to continue to partner with Excel in this critical work.
Interested in a partnership with Hendy? Reach out to Jess to schedule a call.
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 to spotlight this protocol adapted from Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and Uncommon Schools. Uncommon maintains their position as pace setters in people development; check out Leverage Leadership 2.0, in addition to the Uncommon Schools’ blog for more incredible resources, in addition to- we, and the entire field, are indebted to their work.
Here is a breakdown of how this tool transforms a standard debrief into a high-impact coaching session.
The 6-Step Coaching Roadmap
The protocol is divided into six distinct phases designed to move from celebration to practice.
1. Precise Praise (1-2 Minutes)
Start by grounding the conversation in success. Leaders are encouraged to share concrete statements of praise that recognize strengths or the implementation of previous feedback.
- Pro Tip: Use specific language from the Hendy Instructional Excellence Rubric to ensure the praise is professional and objective.
2. The Discussion (10-15 Minutes)
This is the “meat” of the meeting, divided into three phases:
- Identify the Goal: Collaboratively define what excellence looks like for a specific rubric indicator.
- Explore the Gap: Present evidence from the observation to identify the difference between the current practice and the goal.
- Close the Gap: Use modeling, exemplar videos, or reflective questioning to determine how to bridge that gap.
3. The “Bite-Sized” Action Step (2 Minutes)
The leader names one specific, observable, and “bite-sized” action step. For example, instead of “improve monitoring,” a step might be: “Pre-plan a circulation route for the next lesson’s independent practice”.
- Key Requirement: Have the teacher restate the action step and write it down to ensure total alignment.
4. Plan Ahead (3-5 Minutes)
Don’t leave the implementation to chance. Collaboratively design or revise upcoming lesson plans to integrate the new action step. This involves reviewing materials and identifying exactly where the new strategy fits best.
5. Practice! (10-15 Minutes)
This is often the most overlooked step in coaching. The teacher practices the action step through role-play.
- Immediate Feedback: The leader pauses the practice at any point to provide feedback and the teacher repeats the exercise until it is successful.
- Increased Complexity: Once the basics are mastered, the leader adds “real-world” challenges, like a disruptive student or a more difficult question.
6. Follow-up (1-3 Minutes)
End by confirming the timeline. Set a specific date for the next observation or a deadline for reviewing a modified lesson plan.
Why It Works
By focusing on one measurable action and providing a safe space to practice before the next class, this protocol moves beyond “giving advice” and into true skill-building. Want your own copy of the Observation Coaching Protocol and Planning Guide? Download the Hendy Instructional Excellence Rubric, or reach out to Jess!
A Conversation on AI in Education: Aaron Cuny and Erica Murphy on the AI for Equity and Hendy Avenue Partnership
The partnership between AI for Equity and Hendy Avenue Consulting has been instrumental in helping school leaders navigate AI adoption. We sat down with Aaron Cuny, Founder of AI for Equity, and Erica Murphy, Hendy Consultant, to discuss their collaboration, what they’ve learned, and what’s ahead.
You two have spent over 2 years working closely with one another on AI initiatives. What is your counterpart’s superpower, and how have they amplified the work of AI implementation and adoption for AI for Equity partners?
Erica: Aaron is uniquely able to think both at the balcony level and the weeds level, basically simultaneously. He knows everything about the sector—stays up to date by reading everything—and then really works to identify next steps that would benefit our partners in the near term. It’s fun watching him think broadly about policy, funders, and scope, and then narrowly draft implementation plans that could be used the next day.
Aaron: Erica brings a rare combination of deep content knowledge and an intuitive understanding of the change management dynamics that sit at the heart of implementing anything in a school system. AI adoption isn’t just a technology challenge—it’s a people challenge, and Erica gets that. She understands how school systems actually operate, where the friction points are, and how to move leaders from awareness to action in ways that stick. That expertise has been especially valuable as our work has evolved from building general AI awareness among leaders to tackling the harder, more nuanced questions around instructional integration and AI literacy. On top of all that, she’s just easy to work with—which matters more than people realize in partnership work like this.
AI implementation can feel overwhelming for school leaders. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone just starting this journey?
Erica: Identify a problem you are already facing and then seek to find ways that AI can help. That way, it isn’t a new thing; it’s a tool to address something you are already grappling with. Getting started is the hardest part, so just try it!
Aaron: I’m going to make an opposite recommendation, here – start with governance, not tools. Before you dive into which AI products to pilot or what policies to write, clarify roles, responsibilities, and decision-rights. Who owns the AI strategy for your organization? Who’s making decisions about what gets adopted and how? Once that’s clear, validate for your team that this work is deeply connected to your mission of serving kids—because it is. And then be honest with your team about prioritization. Everyone is juggling competing demands, so leaders need to name that this matters and create real space for people to engage with it meaningfully.
I love how two differing approaches to AI implementation surfaced in your last responses. Both make a lot of sense! I’m curious, how has this partnership changed your own thinking about AI in education?
Erica: Outside of my work with AI for Equity, if I were still a CAO, I would likely think AI was just “another thing,” and I doubt I would prioritize it. Aaron has shown me the full spectrum potential—both positive and negative—of AI and really made me think critically about the changing world our students will enter. If we don’t change with them, our K-12 system isn’t preparing them with what they’ll need to thrive in the workforce.
Aaron: Erica has been a real value-add in evolving our thinking about the implementation challenges on the instructional side of the work. Early on, a lot of our focus was on helping leaders understand AI and build organizational readiness—things like strategy, governance, talent implications. That work remains critical. But as we’ve gone deeper, Erica has helped sharpen our thinking about what it actually takes to move AI from the leadership level into curriculum and instruction—into the classroom, where it ultimately has to reach students. That’s a fundamentally different implementation challenge, and her perspective on the pedagogy, the change management, and the practical realities of instructional communities has made our approach stronger.
What are you most excited about for the next phase of this work?
Aaron: I’m really excited about the AI Literacy Collective. We’ve brought together an incredible group of ecosystem partners—TNTP, Leading Educators, Student Achievement Partners, Teaching Lab, Bellwether, Hendy, and others—to tackle a challenge that no single organization can solve alone. Right now, most school systems are finding that AI student usage policy isn’t enough. Policies don’t give teachers sufficient task-level clarity, so students are having wildly inconsistent experiences depending on which classroom they’re in. What the sector needs is AI usage expectations embedded directly into curriculum itself. That’s what the Collective is building—open-source instructional frameworks across core content areas that we believe will inform the next generation of curricula and digital learning. We’re defining how students should interact with AI in ways that uphold rather than collapse academic rigor, and mapping that to specific content-area skills. I think this work has the potential to shape how curriculum developers and publishers think about AI integration for years to come.
Erica: Well said, Aaron – and ditto! Our AI literacy instructional frameworks and potentially partnering with ELA curricular providers to integrate literacy at the materials level have me really energized as we round the corner on the next phase of our collaborative efforts.
You can find out more about AI for Equity by visiting their website: https://ai-for-equity.org.
Building Toward Equitable AI Implementation In K-12 Schools: Hendy’s Partnership with AI for Equity
By Hendy Avenue Consulting
Artificial Intelligence has the potential to enhance educator efficacy, efficiency, and sustainability. It also has the potential to exacerbate educational inequity if school systems serving under-resourced communities don’t have the support, training, and planning necessary to benefit from this technological advancement. This dual reality, AI as both opportunity and risk, is exactly why Hendy Avenue Consulting partnered with Aaron Cuny, founder of AI for Equity, in 2023.
Over the past three years, this partnership has been an incredible opportunity to collaborate with a visionary thought leader (hey, Aaron!), work alongside motivated educators pushing the envelope on what teaching and learning look like in the age of AI, and continue honing our skills as advisors in the education space.
The Genesis: Why This Partnership Matters
When Aaron Cuny founded AI for Equity, he understood something crucial: the AI revolution in education would either narrow opportunity gaps or widen them dramatically. There would be no neutral middle ground.
School systems with resources, technical expertise, and planning capacity would adopt AI tools strategically. Systems already under-resourced would fall further behind, unless early adopters intentionally built the infrastructure, knowledge, and support structures to level the playing field.
That mission aligned perfectly with Hendy Avenue’s commitment to creating equitable opportunities for all students. Our expertise in implementation, change management, and building educator capacity made us natural partners for AI for Equity’s vision.
The result? A three-year collaboration (and still going strong) that has touched hundreds of educators, developed critical frameworks and resources, and influenced how school systems approach AI implementation with equity at the center.
The Work: From Communities of Practice to AI Literacy Standards
Years 1-2: Building the Foundation
AI for Equity Communities of Practice
We began by co-facilitating Communities of Practice where education leaders learned about AI, grappled with its implications, and supported each other through the uncertainty of this rapidly evolving landscape.
These weren’t typical professional development sessions. They were spaces for honest conversation and collective sense-making. Leaders asked hard questions: How do we approach AI when we barely understand it ourselves? How do we ensure equity when these tools are built by companies that don’t understand our communities? How do we balance innovation with protecting students?
Resource Hub Development
Recognizing that scattered information was a barrier to thoughtful implementation, we built comprehensive resource hubs:
- AI Literacy Curriculum Hub: Vetted curriculum resources, lesson plans, and implementation guides
- Talent Resources Hub: Tools and frameworks for how AI affects recruitment, development, evaluation, and retention of educators
These weren’t just link collections. They were curated, contextualized resources designed specifically for K-12 realities.
AI Product Reviews
We systematically reviewed AI products and platforms, helping school systems cut through vendor hype to assess: Does this tool actually work? What are the equity implications? What implementation support is needed? What are the privacy concerns? Our reviews helped systems make informed decisions rather than reactive purchases.
Year 3 and Beyond:
AI Explorers Cohorts
Aaron’s priority has always been bringing intentionality to how he creates space for education leaders to wrestle with AI adoption and literacy. After reflecting on the impact of AI for Equity’s Communities of Practice, Aaron launched the AI Explorers Cohorts, accelerated communities of practice aimed at bringing newly interested schools and systems up to speed.
Hendy’s Rachel Modica-Russell facilitated two AI Explorers cohorts in 2024-2025, reaching over 15 additional school systems nationwide.
AI Literacy Framework Development
As the partnership matured, we moved from general AI awareness to building specific literacy frameworks. Anchored in the OECD AI Literacy Framework, we defined what AI literacy actually means for K-12 students across three domains:
- Creating with AI: Collaborating ethically with AI systems in creative and problem-solving processes
- Managing AI: Intentionally choosing how AI supports and enhances human work
- Designing AI: Understanding how AI works and its social and ethical impacts
This wasn’t theoretical work. It was grounded in what students would actually need to thrive in an AI-saturated world.
AI Literacy Collective
Over the last year, Erica Murphy has spent much of her time contributing to the AI Literacy Collective – an ecosystem of partner play, bringing together organizations like TNTP, Leading Educators, Teaching Lab, Bellwether, Student Achievement Partners, and others (including Hendy!) to collaboratively develop and disseminate a framework to use when integrating AI literacy into core content instruction.
What Makes This Partnership Work
Reflecting on three years of collaboration and heading into year four, several factors have made this partnership fruitful:
Complementary Expertise Aaron brings visionary thinking about AI’s trajectory and deep connections to tech and policy worlds, along with extensive experience as a leader in the K12 space. Hendy brings implementation expertise, change management frameworks, and intimate knowledge of how school systems operate at scale. Together, we bridge the gap between possibility and practice.
Shared Values Both organizations are anchored in a commitment to equity. This shapes every decision we make about which tools to recommend, how to structure learning experiences, and which schools to prioritize for support.
Learning Orientation Neither organization pretends to have all the answers. AI is evolving too rapidly for that. Instead, we approach the work with curiosity, humility, and willingness to learn alongside the educators we serve. When we discover we were wrong about something, we adjust quickly.
Why This Partnership Matters for Hendy
Beyond the direct impact on school systems, this partnership has shaped Hendy Avenue Consulting in important ways.
It has kept us on the cutting edge of a rapidly evolving landscape, ensuring our consulting work stays relevant and forward-looking. It has connected us to innovative educators and thought leaders across the country, expanding our network and learning. It has challenged us to think differently about implementation. AI requires different change management approaches than traditional initiatives.
Most importantly, it has reinforced our belief that the future of education depends on thoughtful, equity-centered partnerships between organizations that bring different expertise to the table.
An Invitation to Join the Work
If you’re an education leader grappling with AI implementation, you don’t have to figure it out alone. AI for Equity has built the infrastructure, frameworks, and community to support thoughtful, equity-centered AI adoption.
Learn more about AI for Equity by visiting their website:,https://ai-for-equity.org/ , or reach out to Hendy Avenue Consulting to explore how we can support your system’s AI journey.