Give me a problem, I’ll make you a solution.
Unsure where to start with AI, and a little stressed that you’re already behind? Most of the leaders I talk to feel that way. Like you, I’ve been in schools a long time, always looking for a better way to do the work. There are options now that we didn’t have two years ago. That doesn’t mean the old way was wrong. It just means there’s more on the table. Fifteen years in schools, two years deep in AI. Let me help you get on the other side of it.
Give me 30 minutes, I’ll give you three hours back a week, every week.That is one tool, built on your screen and running by the following Monday, for work or for yourself. Then we go find the next three hours.
Never student records, and you always know what a tool can and can’t touch. There’s always a human in the loop.
Book a 30 minute call (opens in a new tab) Free, and useful either way.
Does your week still look like this?
- Building the deck for Wednesday’s PD.
- Writing the weekly team email, four drafts in, still not right.
- Rebuilding the daily coverage schedule from scratch, before most people are awake.
- Waiting on academic data that sits in a spreadsheet until somebody has four hours.
Or wake up at 3am sure you’ve forgotten something?
A tool can do every one of those. I’ve built ten so far, for school leaders, ops directors, principal managers and academic teams. By my count they hand back more than 100 hours a week.
Why Build Your Own
Some of this exists as software already. Ours is better, or at least better for your school. You control the product. It’s built exactly the way you want it, and it fits what you already use. One-time cost, not a subscription. And some of these do things that don’t exist anywhere else.
Here are a few:
Individualized Data Reports For academic leaders and principal managers
Puts the ninth grade data in front of the people who can act on it, every Tuesday. By hand it’s six to eight hours a week, so nobody did it.
Coverage Schedule Maker For ops directors
Builds the day’s sub coverage in seconds instead of an hour. She was wary of AI, which I understood, and I built her the tool anyway. Somewhere between two and four hours of her week came back, and she’s asking what else can work this way.
In her hands now. We’re still tuning it.
Communications Engine For principals, deans and APs
Writes the email you’ve been putting off, in your voice. Tell it who you’re writing to, what it’s about, the tone and the length. Feed it your questions, your fears, your brain dump. It runs through an engine trained on hundreds of school leader emails, not general chatbot training, and hands you back a few high-level drafts. We tweak those to the final product, and your tweaks feed back in until it runs in your voice and your preferences.
It’s for when you don’t know where to start, or you’re worried about how it’ll read. We also build personas of the people you write to and use them in the editing.
Meeting Suite For anyone who runs the week in meetings
Agendas, next steps, calendar invites, reminders and the follow-up email, from a few keystrokes. All the important work, none of the hassle.
In build now.
Ask The Handbook For anyone tired of hearing “I didn’t know”
Answers any policy question straight out of your own handbook. How do I call out sick? What did we say the rules were around academic integrity?
Scoped and priced per school. Ask me what it would take.
Academic Health Coach Live, and free to try
Talks you through your own data and the next move.
One, Start to Finish
See A Real One The ninth grade build, start to finish
What’s Next
Those are the hero examples. Here’s what’s next. Use one of these, or point me at a new one.
- Board deck builder. The Sunday board deck, built from the same seven files every quarter.
- Walkthrough coaching engine. Observation notes to a coaching email in your voice, and an arc per teacher.
- Enrollment engine. Seats against pipeline against last year, week by week, and where the funnel leaks.
- Campus coordination. Email to calendar to the daily, weekly and monthly look-ahead.
- Data demystifier. A messy SIS export in. What it means and what to do Monday, out.
- A thought partner that knows your people. A page per key person, so the hard calls come back specific.
Systems are the solution, and I’m using AI to supercharge them safely. This is version two.
Version one was manuals and trainings. Version two builds the thing with you, in your account, and leaves it running.
You could absolutely do this yourself. So could every principal I’ve ever coached, and almost none of them did, and it was never because they weren’t smart enough. It’s that the work that would save you time is always the work that loses to whatever is on fire.
The Work
Time back
Point this at the work a tool can do: the pulls, the formatting, the first drafts, the weekly report nobody wants to build.
Ten percent of your week is more than 250 hours a year.
The risk: nothing student-facing, nothing that makes a decision, nothing that leaves the systems you already control. If it breaks, somebody does it the old way for a week.
Systems
The manuals, the operating guides, the review cycles. What turns a decision made in August into what actually happens on a Tuesday in February.
Yours to keep: written down, and it runs without me.
Expert Thought Partner
The part only a person can do. What to do next. Whether these three problems are really one problem. Whether the leader in front of you needs help or needs a different job.
Do It With AI Safely
The systems here are efficient and automated. Nothing ever goes out without a human in the loop. That’s how you get the efficiency without sacrificing the quality.
91% of my clients came back the next year, and the growth was all referral.
Where I did it
The Record
The work with Chris deeply accelerated the trajectory of my school, and ultimately the network at large. It was nothing short of transformational, and I do not use that word lightly.
Jerel Bryant · CEO, Collegiate Academies · Louisiana State Principal of the Year
Our school leaders name his coaching and support as having very high impact, and they push hard to get as many ‘Chris days’ at their schools as possible. I would highly recommend Chris to any school, CMO, or district looking to make dramatic improvements.
Doug McCurry · Co-Founder, Achievement First
We built an organization culture that aligned to our mission by working with Chris. He built the capacity of our leadership team, created the systems and tools, and showed us what REAL change management looks like.
Kinnari Patel-Smyth · President, KIPP Foundation
Chris spent two days with us, but his impression has left a mark for years. In minutes he could identify the root causes of culture breakdowns, and equally important, tools and strategies to dramatically and immediately change them. He is always there for us, to talk, share, empathize and then help me make tough decisions.
Rachel Yanof · Founder, ASU Prep South Phoenix
Chris’s monthly visits were a catalyst for dramatic growth. On our network’s evaluation system, we went from the lowest-performing middle school to the highest-performing in the history of our network. Truly, Chris was no small part of that.
Tom Kaiser · Founder, Authentic Leaders · former Principal, Achievement First Endeavor MS
Four More, Verbatim
Amy D’Angelo · Executive Director, Connecticut, Achievement First
I’ve been struck not only by Chris’ unique skill in execution with students, but also by his ability to strategically think through building and improving school systems.
Kendra Engels · Vice President of Program, Achieve Twin Cities
He asked the right questions to get me to take a hard look at my practice and to make small shifts that made a big difference.
Stu Warshawer · Principal, Harriton High School · founding Principal, KIPP Camden
Chris not only helped us calibrate our bar for what excellence looks like in the classroom, but helped us create clear systems to achieve it.
Jeremy Abarno · Founder, Jeremy Abarno Consulting · former Principal, PAVE Academy
Chris is a keen listener and an insightful observer and has used his experience and skills to tailor his consulting and leadership development services to fit our school’s needs.
Advisory and Expert Network · for investors and education companies. I advise on the K-12 buying decision: who actually decides, and what a school will renew.
You’re trying to figure out AI on top of a job that’s already full.
I know that’s not a fun place to be.
Tell me what you’re up against. If I can help, I’ll say how I’d start. If I can’t, I’ll say that too.
Book a 30 minute call (opens in a new tab) Or write me: chris@habetlerconsulting.com · 617-913-8366
How We’ll Work Together
Done with you. We build it in your account, on your work. There’s no man behind the curtain.
Take the three-minute scorecard, or write me the problem in a sentence. Either way I see where your week is going before we talk. Then I write back: what I’d build first, what I wouldn’t touch, and what I think it’s costing you in school days. No call needed. You mark it up. If you write “looks right, thanks,” we’re done, and you keep it.
Forty-five minutes, on your screen, in your account, from your own drafts and public information. Never student records. It runs the following week.
You break it, I fix it. Then I hand it off, written down, so it keeps running without me. The next one is your call.
The Guarantee
The worst case: 75 minutes of your time, the call and the build. You keep the tool either way.
Two other ways in. Take the three-minute scorecard and I’ll show you what the busywork is costing you, in school days a year. Or name the problem here and I’ll tell you what I’d do first.