Consulting at Growth MindED is direct work with school, network, and nonprofit leaders on two things that carry equal weight: developing the leaders who carry the work, and building the systems their teams run every day. The Growth MindED Library sells the tools. This page is for leaders who want a partner in the room, with the shapes, timelines, and prices written out below.
Every engagement is built so your team continues without me. That is the design goal, and it shapes what gets built and how long it takes.
Some engagements start with a leader who is carrying too much alone. Some start with a system that exists on paper and nowhere else. Most need both, because a strong leader without a system burns out, and a system without a leader who owns it stops by October.
A standing weekly conversation with an outside advisor, tied to your real priorities, decisions, and evidence. For executives, heads of school, principals, and directors. ICF-certified.
Start a conversationBuilding the skill of principals, assistant principals, site directors, and supervisors so that they run the work themselves. This includes the tools, the weekly routines, and the year-round cycle that keeps the work going after the engagement ends.
See how engagements workStaff development, executive director evaluation, delegation, and board partnership for nonprofit leaders.
See nonprofit offersRole-specific expectations, rubrics that say what does not count, development plans, evidence-based reviews, and one annual cycle that connects them.
See how engagements workTurning CLASS® and observation data into a working weekly rhythm. This names what coaches do, what teachers practice, and how leaders follow up, so that the quality of adult and child interaction actually changes. Home of ISA.
See the ISA systemWalkthrough routines, feedback cycles, and supervision structures that end in a decision instead of a page of notes. Every week has two columns, what the person being supported does and what the person supervising them does.
See how engagements workPartnering with charter boards and heads of school through Risk to Renewal, Growth MindED’s framework for charter school turnaround. The work starts with the Renewal Readiness Diagnostic and moves through six phases, from stabilizing the school to sustaining the gains. The purpose is to leave the school with working systems and a team that knows how to run them, rather than a report.
See Risk to RenewalThe goal is always transfer: leaders who can lead the work, and systems their teams can use and sustain.
Engagements come in three shapes. Each one names what happens, how long it runs, and what your school has at the end.
Two to three weeks. I review the systems you already have, including your rubrics, your observation tools, your meeting calendar, and your development cycle. You receive a written read of what is working, what is missing, and a sequenced recommendation. The purpose is to give you a decision, not a document. At Growth MindED we have found that many leaders stop here and build from the recommendation themselves.
One semester, focused on one system. Together we design it, write it, train your team, and run it once with you before you own it. Examples include a supervision cycle for assistant principals, a full evaluation cycle from goal setting through end of year, or an observation and coaching rhythm.
A full school year across several connected systems, with regular working sessions, calibration with your leaders, and a scheduled handover. This is the shape for a network standardizing practice across sites. A charter school preparing for renewal begins with the Renewal Readiness Diagnostic, described on the Risk to Renewal page.
Each shape can center on a leader, a system, or both. A standing weekly conversation with an executive, head of school, or principal can be written into the scope of any of them.
Purchase orders are accepted, and every engagement is invoiced against a written scope.
Though some consulting engagements end with a strategy document and a set of recommendations, at Growth MindED Consulting an engagement ends with working artifacts and trained people, because a system your team cannot run on their own is a system that stops when the consultant leaves.
“Nicole has been a real support to me this year. Our weekly conversations gave me a sounding board for curriculum decisions and helped me map out next steps for our teachers and students. She also built tools we'll keep using at my school, including an intervention structure, individual student profiles, and a data tracker with clear guidance on how to use it. I'm grateful for her coaching and the work she put into our school.”
I have sat in most of the seats inside a school and a school system. I started teaching at 18 and later taught bilingual immersion in a DC public school, and across public charter schools since then I have been the coach, the principal, and the network vice president. The systems I build are the ones I needed and did not have.
On the leadership side, I led Edgewood Elementary at DC Prep through a turnaround to Blue Ribbon status within two years, and I later supervised the principals of three Tier 1 campuses at DC Prep. I am an ICF-certified executive coach. I know what it is like to carry a school, and what it takes to support the person who does.
On the systems side, the work is built at real scale. That includes rubrics written for every seat on a staff chart, instructional and non-instructional, and a year-round development cycle with named stages, owners, and exit conditions that a school runs from August through June. Though some evaluation systems leave the scoring to each school to work out on its own, at Growth MindED we write it down, because two managers looking at the same person should arrive at the same score. I also created ISA, the Instructional Support Accelerator.
My current work includes building leader development and performance management systems for a DC public charter school.
Use connected templates to prepare decisions, assign work, and update your board.
Explore the nonprofit toolkitRequest a defined review of the documents your school will use to show its work.
Request an evidence-review scopeConnect an existing Growth MindED system to your team, dates, and first use.
See implementation optionsSchool budget proposals are typically built between January and March, adopted by boards between April and June, and executed before July 1. If you are planning for next school year, a conversation in the fall gives you a full cycle to work with. If you are mid-year and something is not holding, the Systems Diagnostic is designed to fit inside a semester.
The first conversation is a scoping call, and it is thirty minutes. For charter turnaround work, the first conversation is a 15-minute call to decide whether the Renewal Readiness Diagnostic is the right first step. Bring the system you are worried about, or the leadership question you are carrying. We will walk through what exists now, who owns it, and where it stops working. You will leave with my read on whether this is a Systems Diagnostic, a Systems Plan, or a Partnership, and roughly what it would cost.
Within two business days you will receive a written scope with the shape of the work, the timeline, the price, and what your team would have at the end. There is no obligation attached to it, and you are welcome to build from it yourself.
Request a scoping call