Posts Tagged ‘Talent Development’
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.
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.
From 46% to 73% Proficiency: Building a Culture of Mathematical Thinking at Hebrew Public – Hebrew Language Academy
A Case Study in Sustained Partnership and Leadership Development
By Hendy Avenue Consulting
The Challenge
When Hebrew Public’s new Chief Schools Officer reached out to Hendy Avenue Consulting nearly seven years ago, the network was ready to transform its mathematics program. They weren’t just looking for curriculum recommendations or professional development sessions. They needed a partner who could help them fundamentally shift how their schools approached math instruction – from procedures and algorithms to deep understanding and critical thinking.
Changing math mindsets and instructional practices requires more than content knowledge. It demands leadership development, strategic thinking, and sustained support to build capacity at every level of the organization.
The Partnership Approach
What began as a math program evaluation evolved into a comprehensive, multi-year partnership spanning talent strategy, leadership development, and instructional improvement. This case study focuses on one powerful example of that work: Hendy’s coaching relationship with Daniella Steinberg, Head of School at Hebrew Language Academy (HLA).
Building on Strengths
When Hendy consultant Jeremy Abarno began working with Daniella more than five years ago, Daniella had already been a teacher and instructional leader at HLA for many years and brought critical leadership strengths to the role: her decision-making was always student centered, she had a strong eye for quality instruction, a keen ability to consider multiple perspectives, and a balanced approach to communication – kind and direct.
The initial work with Daniella was around clarifying her vision, strategic planning, goal setting, and developing content-based strategies to drive teacher development and student results.
The Coaching Process
Jeremy’s coaching approach centered on three interconnected elements:
1. Clarifying Vision and Strategy They used a theory of action to articulate goals and the strategy to achieve them. This framework became the north star for all decisions about curriculum, professional development, and resource allocation.
2. Making Ideas Actionable Coaching sessions weren’t just about reflection – they were about doing. Jeremy and Daniella worked together on strategic planning, turning ideas into concrete implementation plans with clear measures of success.
3. Building Accountability Systems They established rhythms for measuring progress and adjusting when necessary, ensuring that strategy didn’t just exist on paper but lived in daily practice.
As Jeremy describes it: “Our coaching process was based around goal setting, honest conversations about growth areas and aspirations as well as lots of doing – doing the strategic planning together, helping her articulate and make her ideas actionable and then partnering with her to ensure that she had an implementation plan.”
The Frameworks and Tools: Several key frameworks and protocols drove the work at HLA:
Theory of Action: A clear articulation of goals and the strategy to achieve them, ensuring all stakeholders understood not just what they were doing but why.
Consistent Data Review: Both short and long cycle results allowed the team to study their rate of improvement and make strategic adjustments. This data-driven approach kept the team focused on outcomes rather than falling in love with inputs.
Content-Based Protocols: Intellectual preparation and planning protocols ensured instruction remained at a rigorous level, with teachers deepening their understanding of grade-level concepts and the connections across grade levels.
Walkthrough Protocols with the Hendy Instructional Excellence Rubric: These protocols engaged Daniella’s leadership team in calibrating their observations and then engaging teachers in cycles that balanced support and accountability.
Practicing Crucial Conversations: Repeatedly rehearsing and refining the conversations needed to help people grow – because leadership development isn’t just about knowing what to say, it’s about being able to say it effectively.
According to Jeremy, “The main ingredients that made this approach successful were humility, investment in growth, and a willingness to let the data and outcomes tell us how we were doing rather than falling in love with our inputs.”
The Three Fundamental Shifts
Over the course of the partnership, three key transformations emerged in mathematics instruction at HLA:
1. What Was Valued Changed
From: Valuing correct answers
To: Valuing proof of understanding
This shift was driven by changing assessments and curriculum to focus on critical thinking and problem-solving that required proof and connection-making. Students needed to demonstrate not just that they could arrive at an answer, but that they understood why it worked.
2. Teacher Training and Coaching Evolved
From: Focusing primarily on content delivery
To: Emphasizing thinking for both teachers and students
Teachers engaged in intellectual preparation sessions where they deepened their understanding of grade-level math concepts as well as preceding and following grade levels. This allowed them to understand what foundational knowledge students needed and what connections students could make to future learning.
Student thinking became centered in two ways: teachers anticipated how students might solve problems, and they reviewed student work to understand what students were demonstrating and what they still needed to learn.
3. Student Investment and Engagement Transformed
From: Students as passive recipients of procedures
To: Students as active mathematical thinkers
Students became eager to share their thinking with the class – presenting strategies, defending their thinking, and even critiquing their classmates’ reasoning. Students knew their ideas were valued and that they could learn from each other.
The Results
The numbers tell a powerful story:
- School Year 2021-22: 46% of students in grades 3-8 achieved proficiency on the NYS math exam
- School Year 2023-24: 73% of students achieved proficiency. That’s a 27 percentage point gain – representing hundreds of students who are now on track to meet college and career readiness standards in mathematics.
But the quantitative data only captures part of the impact. The qualitative transformation is equally significant:
- Teachers who now approach math instruction with deeper understanding and confidence
- Students who see themselves as mathematical thinkers, not just answer-generators
- A school culture that values critical thinking across all subjects, not just math
- Leaders equipped with the tools and frameworks to sustain and continue this improvement
HLA has gone from having about 4 out of every 10 students being on track to meet college and career readiness standards to having 7 out of 10 students on track – and they’re not stopping there.
The Most Significant Transformation
While the math gains are impressive, Jeremy identifies something even more important: “The most significant transformation is the connections that leaders and teachers at HLA have made across the curriculum. Comprehension and critical thinking isn’t just a math skill – it is something that the school strives for in every subject.”
This is the power of deep, sustained partnership. What began as mathematics improvement evolved into a fundamental shift in how the school approaches teaching and learning across all content areas.
The Hendy Difference: What Made This Partnership Work Over Nearly Seven Years?
Contextual Expertise Over Generic Solutions
This isn’t consulting where you deliver a manual and move on. It’s partnership where you understand the specific people, culture, and challenges of an organization and adapt proven approaches to fit their reality. “Matching, or meeting folks where they are is just as important as expertise,” Jeremy emphasizes. “You build capacity by understanding context, investing in and clarifying the leader’s goals, and supporting their attainment of those goals.”
This principle shaped every coaching conversation, every framework implementation, and every strategic decision throughout the partnership.
What’s Next
Over 5 years in, and the partnership between Hendy Avenue Consulting and Hebrew Public Charter Schools as a network continues. The work has expanded beyond mathematics at one campus to encompass talent strategy and leadership development across the network.
The foundation built at HLA – the frameworks, the mindsets, the culture of critical thinking – continues to drive results. The HLA team is equipped with the tools, the experience, and the track record to continue pushing toward even more ambitious goals.
And throughout that building, students are defending their mathematical reasoning, critiquing each other’s strategies, and discovering that they are mathematical thinkers capable of solving complex problems.
That’s the real measure of success.
Professional Development That Actually Sticks: Research-Based Strategies from the Field
By Hendy Avenue Consulting
We’ve all been there: sitting through professional development that felt inspiring in the moment but completely forgotten by Monday morning. The binder sits on a shelf. The handouts get recycled. And teacher or leadership practice remains unchanged.
This isn’t just frustrating—it’s a significant investment of time and resources that yields minimal return. So what’s the problem? And more importantly, what actually works?
After years of designing and facilitating professional learning for leaders and educators across the country, our team at Hendy Avenue Consulting has identified several key strategies that make the difference between PD that fades and PD that transforms practice.
The Science of Adult Learning
Before diving into strategies, it’s essential to understand how adults learn. Malcolm Knowles’ theory of andragogy identifies several key principles:
- Adults are self-directed and relevancy-oriented. They want to understand why they’re learning something and how it connects to their immediate work. Top-down mandates without clear rationale breed resistance.
- Adults bring experience to learning. Effective PD acknowledges and builds on educators’ existing expertise rather than ignoring it.
- Adults are problem-solvers. They’re motivated to learn when they see it as a solution to real challenges they’re facing.
Additionally, cognitive science tells us that learning requires active processing, not passive reception. Research suggests adults retain only 5% of what they hear in a lecture, but 75% of what they practice and 90% of what they teach to others.
Seven Strategies for Effective PD
Strategy #1: Structure the Flow from “Why” to “How”
The Strategy: Build your PD narrative in a logical sequence that mirrors how adults process information.
Start with Why: Connect the topic to core principles or challenges educators face. Research shows that starting with purpose creates buy-in and meaning-making.
Move to What: Clearly define key concepts.
End with How: Provide actionable, concrete strategies for implementation. Adults need to see the bridge from theory to their classroom.
Why It Works: This structure aligns with how our brains naturally process information—from abstract to concrete, from conceptual to applied. It honors adult learners’ need for autonomy and relevance by establishing purpose before diving into tactics.
Strategy #2: Translate Theory to Practice with “Look-Fors”
The Strategy: For any standard, theory, or principle you introduce, provide specific, observable examples of what it looks like in practice.
If you’re teaching about student-centered instruction, don’t just define it—show video of a classroom where students are doing the cognitive heavy lifting. Identify the specific teacher moves and student behaviors that make it student-centered. Create a list of “look-fors” that educators can use to recognize quality practice.
Why It Works: Abstract concepts rarely translate to changed practice without concrete examples. The more specific and contextualized the examples, the more likely educators are to successfully implement. Brain science tells us we learn through pattern recognition—showing multiple examples of what something “looks like” helps educators recognize and replicate those patterns in their own practice.
Strategy #3: Use the OARRs Structure for Purposeful Design
The Strategy: Structure every PD session using OARRs:
- Objectives: What will participants know or be able to do?
- Agenda: What’s the sequence of activities?
- Roles: Who’s responsible for what?
- Rules: What norms guide our work?
If an activity doesn’t serve the objective, cut it.
Why It Works: Clear objectives align with adult learning theory’s emphasis on purposeful, goal-oriented learning. When participants see the connection from activity to objective, they understand why they’re engaging in each task, which increases motivation and retention.
Strategy #5: Include Work Time and Practice in the Session
The Strategy: Give educators time in the session to practice new skills or plan for implementation. Don’t send them away with good intentions but no concrete plan.
This might mean:
- Practicing a new discussion protocol
- Planning next week’s lesson using a new framework
- Creating a tool or resource they’ll use immediately
- Rehearsing a challenging instructional move
Why It Works: When educators leave PD with something they’ve already created or practiced, the barrier to implementation drops significantly. Research on implementation science shows that the gap between learning and doing is where most initiatives fail—work time closes that gap.
Strategy #6: Set a Vision of Excellence
The Strategy: Show, don’t just tell. Use video, live modeling, or high-quality examples so everyone can agree on what “it” looks like.
Show video of excellent execution. Share examples of student work at different performance levels. Create shared understanding through shared observation.
Why It Works: Without concrete examples, people develop wildly different interpretations of the same standard. Video and models create shared understanding of quality. People learn powerfully through observation—seeing expert performance helps educators develop mental models of success.
Strategy #7: Create Space for Contextual Application
The Strategy: After establishing a vision of excellence, ask educators to apply it to their specific context:
- “What will you steal?” (implement exactly as shown)
- “What will you adapt?” (modify for your context)
- “What questions does this raise?”
Give educators permission to make the practice their own.
Why It Works: Adults bring diverse experiences and contexts to learning. One-size-fits-all approaches ignore this reality. Educators are more likely to implement new practices when they have autonomy to adapt them thoughtfully. Contextual application also engages higher-order thinking—educators analyze, evaluate, and create rather than just receiving information.
Bringing It All Together: The Arc of Effective PD
When you combine these strategies, effective PD follows a clear arc:
- Establish Purpose (Why): Connect to educators’ real challenges and core values
- Build Understanding (What): Define concepts clearly with concrete examples
- Show Excellence: Model or view high-quality examples together
- Provide Tools (How): Give actionable strategies and resources
- Practice and Plan: Build work time into the session
- Apply to Context: Support educators in adapting to their specific situations
- Set Next Steps: Create accountability and follow-up structures
This arc honors how adults learn while maximizing the likelihood that new learning translates to changed practice.
The Bottom Line
By grounding PD design in tried-and-true best practices rooted in adult learning theory, we can create professional learning experiences that don’t just inspire in the moment—they transform practice for the long term.
Interview with Hendy’s Own Erica Murphy: CAO Cohort Facilitator
As we launch another year of our Chief Academic Officer Cohort, we sat down with Hendy consultant and CAO Cohort facilitator Erica Murphy to discuss what makes this professional learning community so impactful for senior academic leaders. Erica brings deep expertise in curriculum, instruction, and leadership development, having previously served as Chief of Curriculum and Instruction at Ascend Public Charter Schools. Her thoughtful approach to facilitation creates the kind of authentic learning environment where CAOs can tackle their biggest challenges alongside trusted colleagues.
Let’s start with the big picture—from your perspective, why is the CAO cohort such a valuable learning community for senior leaders?
The CAO position can be lonely. The opportunity to be in community with other leaders who “get it” and who are facing the same challenges and often doing the same work is invaluable. There’s something powerful about sitting in a room with people who understand the unique pressures and complexities of your role.
That resonates so much. Speaking of what happens in those rooms, what is the session you love most to facilitate, and why?
Strategic planning best processes in January! It’s so important to have good processes and systems to set strategic initiatives in a way that brings people into the process, creates buy-in, and creates clarity for the organization. And starting in January sets people up for success—it’s that perfect timing where you can really think intentionally about the year ahead.
I love that timing aspect. Now, we incorporated coaching into the experience last year—what impact did this have on your approach to facilitation?
It was so helpful to have one-on-one time with individual CAOs to hear how they were thinking about incorporating the strategies and resources from sessions into their own context. Knowing exactly what they were gravitating towards and struggling with helped me plan the whole group sessions in a way that really met their needs. It created this beautiful feedback loop between the individual coaching and our collective learning.
That individualized approach is so valuable. Let me shift gears a bit—can you tell me about the biggest leadership lesson you learned while in the Chief Curriculum and Instruction role at Ascend?
There are any number of good decisions you can make at any different decision point—there is never one right, perfect decision. The important thing is to: one, gather information and stakeholder input; two, consider options; and three, make a decision that you can communicate with compelling rationale. It may be wrong, and that’s okay—you’ll learn from it. But being paralyzed because you want to make the perfect next move doesn’t work, and indecision creates lack of clarity and frustration.
That’s such practical wisdom, especially for leaders who often feel the weight of every decision. As we wrap up, what’s one piece of advice you have for folks in CAO-esque roles?
Get in schools. Get in classrooms. Talk to principals, deans, students. It can be easy to get caught up in the network work, the politics, the paperwork, and so on. But the work is the teaching and learning. What is happening between teachers and students, and is it meaningful? Rigorous? Aligned to goals? Supportive and differentiated for all students? Academically engaging? That’s the most important work.
Perfect advice to end on. Thanks, Erica, for sharing your insights and for the incredible work you do with our cohort members!
Interested in learning more about the Chief Academic Officer Cohort? Reach out to Rachel Modica-Russell (email: rachelmodicarussell@hendyavenue.com) to explore how this professional learning community might support the academic leaders in your network.
The Power of Cohorts
In today’s complex educational landscape, leadership can feel isolating. Whether you’re a Chief Academic Officer driving instructional excellence, a Superintendent exploring AI implementation, or a CTE leader shaping career pathways, the challenges you face are unique to your role—and often, you’re the only person in your organization navigating them.
At Hendy Avenue Consulting, we’ve witnessed firsthand how cohort learning transforms educational leadership. Our experience has shown that the most powerful professional growth happens when leaders come together in structured, purposeful communities.
Why Cohort Learning Works
The power of cohort learning lies in its fundamental truth: leaders need other leaders. When we bring together diverse talent in similar roles, something remarkable happens. Challenges that seemed insurmountable become opportunities for collective problem-solving. Individual expertise becomes shared wisdom. And perhaps most importantly, professional isolation transforms into lasting community. From adaptive leadership skill-building to tactical strategic planning to navigating change within an organization or across the broader educational sector, our cohorts aim to create space for thoughtful engagement and planning for leaders. We currently facilitate four distinctive cohort experiences, each designed to address specific leadership needs in education:
Chief Academic Officer Cohort: For CAOs in high-performing charter networks, this cohort creates a space where academic leaders can sharpen their vision and deepen their impact. Members engage in data-driven discussions, share remediation strategies, and collaborate on achieving equitable outcomes for all students.
AI Explorers Cohort: In partnership with AI for Equity, this nationwide community of practice supports senior executives as they navigate the AI revolution in education. Participants collaborate on everything from organizational planning to product evaluation, ensuring thoughtful and equitable AI implementation in their systems.
Career & Technical Education Group: Tailored for New York state CTE leaders, this program combines strategic planning with practical leadership development. Whether you’re a principal, assistant principal, or district director, you’ll find a community dedicated to advancing career and technical education.
District Educator Effectiveness Leader Cohort: Created for senior talent leaders in large public school districts, this cohort addresses the unique challenges of managing educator effectiveness initiatives at scale. Members find crucial thought partnership among peers who understand the complexities of their role.
The Hendy Approach to Cohort Learning
What makes our cohorts different? We believe effective cohort learning combines:
- Structured learning with organic relationship-building and thought partnership
- Immediate problem-solving with long-term strategic thinking
- Individual growth with collective wisdom
- Theory with practical application
Join Our Community
Educational leadership doesn’t have to be a solitary journey. Whether you’re looking to enhance your leadership, tackle complex challenges, or find a community of fellow leaders, our cohorts offer a proven path forward.
Interested in learning more? Explore our Cohorts page and discover how collaborative learning can transform your leadership journey.
Unlocking Excellence in Teaching with the Hendy Instructional Excellence Rubric
At Hendy Avenue Consulting, we believe every child deserves excellent instruction, every day, in every classroom. This foundational belief has guided our work with schools and districts across the country for over a decade. Now, we’re thrilled to share a tool that embodies this commitment: the Instructional Excellence Rubric.
This free, equity-focused tool is designed to provide a clear and actionable vision for teaching and learning. With its detailed structure and emphasis on both teacher actions and student outcomes, the rubric is more than a framework—it’s a roadmap for achieving excellence in classrooms.
At Hendy, we have had the privilege of partnering with school systems across the country as they endeavor to implement observation rubrics that support great coaching and development for teachers, and improved outcomes for students. The Hendy Instructional Excellence Rubric is the product of several engagements over several years. With our partners, we saw the need for a higher quality observation rubric that better met school systems’ needs, and we worked to create this rubric in partnership with teachers and school leaders from across the country. We’ve supported several systems to successfully implement versions of this rubric, and have seen the positive impact it has had on schools. We are excited now to make this rubric available, for free, to everyone for the benefit of schools, teachers, and students.
What Makes the Instructional Excellence Rubric Unique?
The Instructional Excellence Rubric stands apart because it balances rigorous academics with social-emotional learning, ensuring that all aspects of a student’s success are prioritized. It reflects years of experience working directly with teachers, leaders, and schools to define what truly works in classrooms.
Here’s how the rubric is structured:
- Classroom Culture: Focuses on creating a predictable, joyful, and equitable environment that maximizes learning time.
- Lesson Content & Implementation: Emphasizes rigorous, purposeful, and differentiated instruction to meet the needs of all students.
- Student Thinking: Highlights the importance of students doing the thinking, speaking, writing, and creating during lessons.
- Responsiveness to Learning: Centers on using feedback and data to adapt teaching and ensure every student grows and succeeds.
Each domain contains clear indicators of excellence, articulated across four levels of performance. These descriptors help educators identify what success looks like and provide actionable steps for improvement.
How Can the Rubric Help You?
Whether you’re a school leader, instructional coach, or system administrator, the rubric can:
- Provide a shared language for excellence across your school or district.
- Guide teacher coaching and development with clear, equity-focused expectations.
- Support classroom observations that prioritize student outcomes.
It’s a comprehensive tool for anyone committed to improving teaching and learning at scale.
The Power of Training and Support
While the rubric is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, its full potential is unlocked through thoughtful implementation and training. That’s where Hendy Avenue Consulting can help.
We offer tailored training and support packages to ensure schools and systems:
- Norm around expectations: Build consistency in how the rubric is used across classrooms.
- Develop coaching capacity: Equip leaders to use the rubric as a tool for meaningful teacher development.
- Customize for your context: Adapt the rubric to align with the unique needs and goals of your school or district.
Our team has a proven track record of helping educators implement tools like this successfully, driving real change in teaching and learning.
Ready to Get Started?
The Instructional Excellence Rubric is available for free download:
Let us help you bring it to life. Reach out to Jess to schedule a call!
Together, we can ensure every child experiences the excellent instruction they deserve.
Don’t You Want to Stay? Virtual Stay Conversations as Key Teacher Retention Strategy
Teacher and staff retention is a common concern we hear from school leaders in “normal” times. One of the most efficient and lowest cost methods we have found for encouraging great teachers to stay is by holding “stay conversations”. A stay conversation is an informal chance to share how much you appreciate a teacher’s work, and to directly ask them to stay at your school for the following school year. Stay conversations don’t take much effort, but they have a big impact. When teachers were asked why they left their school, a common response was simply that no one asked them to stay.*
A stay conversation usually happens in a regularly scheduled one-on-one meeting with the teacher. Stay conversations should begin early in the year, ideally before winter break. Leaders can and should continue to communicate value and priority to teachers throughout the spring. This way, if teachers are presented with an opportunity to leave their school, they know how much they are valued and are less likely to leave.
That’s how stay conversations might proceed in normal times. These, however, are not “normal” times. The challenge and uncertainty of the pandemic makes retaining teachers even more critical. Just because we are all working virtually, leaders should not stop holding stay conversations. In fact, the best practices for stay conversations still apply: keep the conversation brief, affirm how much you value the teacher, and articulate how important they are to your students and school. Be honest about the challenges of remote teaching and uncertainty of what the fall might look like. Then share why the teacher is an important part of the team, especially in this uncertainty. Strong teachers are providing a lifeline to families and students right now, and they will continue to need your great teachers when school restarts in the fall. Finally, ask the teacher directly to stay at your school next year.
Ideally you are touching base with each teacher individually on a regular basis during this time of remote teaching and learning. These one-on-ones can be quick check-ins to ask the teacher how things are going for them, and how you can support them. And they are a great time to say directly how much you value the teacher’s work, and ask them to stay next fall.
P.S. If you need a soundtrack to your stay conversations, try this pop, or R&B, or classic rock, or country, or early 90s style (my personal favorite)!
-Jessica
*From The Irreplaceables, TNTP, 2012.