Posts Tagged ‘Hendy Avenue Consulting’
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
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!
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 in specific subjects or areas. They hold responsibility for defining what needs to be taught, and how. The CSO is the person often responsible for the schools themselves. They manage school leaders, and are responsible for ensuring that the systems in schools foster student learning. Both roles are vital, and achieving system-wide excellence requires extraordinary clarity regarding their respective domains.
The ideal in this structure is not just separation of duties and responsibilities, but intentional distinction rooted in alignment, partnership and unity. By establishing clear CAO and CSO ownership and accountability, a school system minimizes friction and avoids duplicating efforts. At the same time, this ownership must be rooted in alignment across departments – both leaders are responsible for different things in service of the same goal: excellent teaching and learning.
When the CAO’s focus on curriculum and instruction is measured by metrics tied directly to the CSO’s oversight of school performance, their efforts become aligned. They are two distinct lanes working toward a common, measurable destination, ensuring that clarity in roles ultimately fuels a powerful, unified pursuit of student success.
Clarity on roles does not mean working in silos. The most effective partnerships thrive on a shared nature that is more specific than just an outcome. This is achieved through implementing shared goals and metrics. This typically means defining what is joint work between the CAO and CSO, and what is distinct in ownership and accountability. For example:
- Joint work: Planning, strategy, priorities, goals, student outcomes, teacher and leader development
- CAO: Program – what we teach, when, and how
- CSO: Implementation – pedagogical moves, accountability, fidelity to the instructional vision
This synergy only happens with clear definition, planning and communication. Teams benefit from articulating a theory of action that defines the joint work and distinct ownership between the two functions, and how that structure will ultimately lead to student achievement. It includes articulating both a shared vision and non-negotiables in the work to ensure alignment. It also requires clear operational strategies – like shared meeting structures and data management – so that the alignment is practical.
Are you interested in exploring ways to strengthen your CAO / CSO focus? Reach out to Jess to talk.
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 at the heart of the lesson. Instead, teachers are holding too tight and reducing the cognitive load on kids. The result – a lack of independence in students.
Why is this happening? In almost all systems we support, schools and teachers have adopted and are using high-quality instructional materials (HQIM). That’s a good thing! What we’re seeing, though, is that teachers often hold so tightly to the lesson structure or over-scaffold the work using those materials that students are left merely copying, following steps without genuine struggle or connections, or being guided in a way that stifles independence and problem-solving. This results in “adults doing the heavy lifting,” which prevents students from developing the deep thinking capacity we want to see.
How the Heavy Lifting Framework Can Help
In these classrooms, the ingredients are there: HQIM, productive classroom environments with kids ready to learn, and willing teachers who are working diligently to support their students. We created the Heaving Lifting Framework to support instructional leaders to coach teachers to move from doing the thinking to putting the work on kids. This framework provides coaches and instructional leaders with a clear lens to diagnose this challenge and coach teachers effectively. It focuses on two core components for creating a classroom where students own the thinking: Planning and Execution.
1. Diagnose the Issue (Planning)
Instructional leaders can use the framework to ask:
- Bottom Line: Does the teacher know the precise learning goal—the bottom line—of the lesson, and are all tasks driving directly towards it?
- Exemplary Work: Has the teacher clearly identified exemplary work (written or verbal) aligned to grade-level expectations, which defines the high bar they are listening for during the lesson?
2. Support the Teacher (Execution)
The framework offers concrete support for in-the-moment coaching:
- Lesson Structure and Work Time: Does the lesson structure include sufficient, uninterrupted time for students to think, write, discuss, and apply the concepts? Is the teacher circulating during this time to identify trends in student data and to provide feedback on student work?
- Appropriate Scaffolding: Is the teacher providing an appropriate amount of scaffolding? This means offering enough context to launch students into the work, but resisting the urge to overscaffold with too many leading questions or by telling students how to solve the problem. Do students have what they need to get started and try on their own?
Supporting Teachers To Pass Off the Thinking
It’s easy to say that kids should be doing the thinking in the classroom, but we’ve found that it’s a lot more difficult to articulate the teacher moves to make that happen. The Heavy Lifting Framework has proven to be useful for the instructional leaders we support. The framework can be a meaningful tool to guide both planning and instructional walkthroughs to support teachers to shift the balance of cognitive work. This is how we support students to ensure that they build the independence they need to succeed.
Want to learn more about supporting kids to do the heavy lifting? Reach out to Jess to schedule a call.
Hendy Avenue: The 2025 Year in Review
We always love a good end-of-year recap, and we’re here with our own “Best Of” list! 2025 was a phenomenal year of deep thinking, high-impact partnerships, and big news. So, queue up the celebratory playlist and let’s dive into the year that was for Hendy Avenue Consulting!
The Headliner List: Our All-Star Clients
Our clients are the reason we do what we do, and collectively, the organizations we supported in 2025 served over 850,000 kids nationwide. That is an incredible impact we are honored to share.
We were lucky enough to partner with outstanding organizations, including:
- AI for Equity
- Breakthrough Public Schools
- Chicago Public Schools
- Delaware Department of Education
- Excel Academy Charter Schools
- Foundation Academies
- Hebrew Public Schools
- NYS CTE Technical Assistance Center
- PAVE Schools
- Urban Community School
Want the full list? Check out the details of all our current and past client projects here!
Our Vibe Check: What We Had on Repeat
Our work spanned the full spectrum of academic and talent systems this year. If 2025 had a few core themes, they would be:
- The Power of “Basics”: Instructional improvement in math and ELA.
- Next-Level Leaders: Leadership coaching and support.
- Improvement Synced: Performance management strategy.
- The Future is Now: Implications, planning, and implementation of AI.
- Talent Blueprint: Talent policy and planning.
The Marathon Minutes: How Long We Rocked Out
We spent many, many minutes collaborating this year including:
- Client Check-ins: Clocking in at more than 37,000 minutes.
- School Site Visits: 9,600 minutes dedicated to being on the ground.
- Team Huddle: Our team check-ins totaled 2,400 minutes.
- Coaching & Cohorts: 5,300 minutes across cohort meetings and one-on-one coaching.
- Steering Committees: more than 1,000 minutes leading decision-making committees.
Big Drop of 2025
Every day is a “biggest working day” in its own way, but May 1st was our main event! We celebrated the legacy of our founder and President, Sarah Rosskamm, as she transitioned from her role, and officially welcomed Jess Wilson as our new President. What a day for Hendy!
Big Birthday: Level 12 Unlocked!
Hendy is officially 12 years old! We’re incredibly proud of the impact we’ve created in service of kids and the adults who support them.
Cheers to an even greater impact in 2026—let the next track begin! Want to join our playlist? Reach out to Jess or schedule a call!
Keep Your Best Talent: Implementing Stay Conversations
The winter break can be an opportunity to relax and refresh in preparation for a strong start to the second half of the school-year. But for some teachers and leaders, winter break can also be a time to consider their next professional move. That’s why we encourage leaders to engage in stay conversations with each of their teachers and team members. This informal, but highly cultivating conversation can be a meaningful tool in a leader’s retention toolbelt.
What is a “stay conversation”?
A stay conversation is just that: a brief conversation with an employee that provides a chance for the leader to clearly state that they value the person and want them to stay at their school or system for the following year. This conversation can be brief, 5-15 minutes, and can happen as a part of a standing check-in or in a separate meeting.
When should stay conversations happen?
Now! Ideally, stay conversations happen right before or right after a break, when teachers may be more likely to be thinking about a job change. But, it’s never too late – stay conversations can be just as meaningful in late winter and early spring.
What should I share in a stay conversation?
Be specific; communicate why the teacher or staff member is an important part of your team. Share examples of ways the teacher or staff member makes a difference to your school community. Be transparent about challenges the school or system is facing, and how valuable the team member is to being a part of addressing those challenges. Listen for motivation; ask for specific ideas from the teacher about what could be improved, and leave the lines of communication open.
A stay conversation is the lowest cost and one of the highest leverage retention strategies leaders have. Consider holding stay conversations with your staff members this winter! Check out our other posts on stay conversations here and here. Or reach out if you want to learn more about retention strategies, or talk about how Hendy can help!