Heather Connolly

Experience

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  Chicago Public Schools

  Jul 2006 - Jun 2013

  Provided daily leadership and supervision for 550 Pre-K - 8 students and 65 staff members. Developed and aligned instructional strategies for the continuous academic and social-emotional growth of all students. Managed the school’s budget to ensure the achievement of academic, operational, and financial goals and objectives. Areas of expertise include, but are not limited to:Strategic PlanningBudget and FinanceHR Management and HiringProfessional DevelopmentLeadership Team DevelopmentParent/Community RelationsCoaching and MentoringPrograms/ Project ManagementCurriculum and Assessment Show less

  • School Principal

    Jul 2008 - Jun 2013

  • Literacy Coach Evaluator

    Jul 2006 - Jul 2008
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  Waterloo Community School District

  Jul 2013 - Apr 2015

  Executive Director of Teaching and Learning and Administration

  In this role, I was responsible for both sustaining and improving the culture of high academic excellence by providing leadership, vision, and strategic direction for curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional development, and school improvement initiatives for 19 schools within the district of roughly 10,800 students. I supervised approximately 50 administrators, directly coaching them to make data-driven decisions to improve student outcomes while coaching them to build effective school improvement strategic plans and rapid cycles of school improvement. Show less

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  Chicago Public Schools

  Jul 2015 - Jun 2019

  Assistant Principal
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  NWEA

  Jul 2019 - Jan 2022

  Coached organizational leaders, school leadership teams, instructional coaches, educators, and other key stakeholders, building capacity around school improvement strategies. Conducted strategic planning, implementation, and progress monitoring with partners which included vision/goal-setting, assessing current reality, gap analysis, existing initiatives, assessing progress, resource allocation, and adjusting plans to meet the needs of their students, staff, and key stakeholders. Delivered high quality, responsive, agile, and collaborative professional learning to meet the multi-dimensional goals of each partner. Show less

  • School Improvement Coach

    Sept 2020 - Jan 2022

  • Professional Learning, Sr. Manager

    Jul 2019 - Jan 2022
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  Center for Educational Advocacy and Equity

  Jan 2021 - now

  Executive Director and Co-founder
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  U.S. Soccer Federation

  Jan 2022 - Jul 2024

  Sr. Manager, Learning and Development & DEIB

  I was the first person hired by the US Soccer Federation for a learning and development role and a diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) role. Being the first in either department gave me the opportunity to build, design, and execute the end-to-end strategy for both of these important pieces of the strategic plan. I developed the Theories of Action behind both departments, designed the strategic goals, the metrics for monitoring effectiveness, all of the milestones in the first 3 years of implementation, as well as all of the systems of accountability for each department. Due to my unique position, I worked with the HR team to design a strategy that connects all of the HR functions into one system with recruitment, onboarding, employee retention, employee engagement, performance management, professional learning, career development, mentoring, and succession planning which works together to allow managers to identify areas of strength or areas of improvement needed, based on data, giving managers tools to make improvements. I also implemented a competency model which provides regular continuous learning pathways for non-managers, managers and executives, based on competencies needed per job functions and allows managers to set goals according to what individual employees need. Show less