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…
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…
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…
The Power of Precision: Defining the CAO and CSO Partnership
In many of the systems we support, there are two cabinet-level roles that are critical to student and teacher success: the Chief Academic Officer (CAO) and the Chief Schools Officer (CSO). In many instances, the CAO is the person responsible for curriculum, instruction, and assessment. They might manage the content-area experts who drive instructional quality…
The Heavy Lifting Framework: Getting Kids To Do the Thinking
In our work supporting schools and school systems, we get the honor of visiting classrooms across all grades and subjects. And, regardless of the school system, geography, age of kid, or content, we are seeing similar challenges in all of our visits: kids are too often not being asked to do the rigorous thinking work…
