Impact

On January 1, 2024, we moved from our previous home – HCM Strategists – to our new one, Waypoint Education Partners. With the full support of our friends and colleagues at HCM, what was formerly known as the K-12 team is embarking on a new adventure that will allow us to grow and innovate in the ways in which we continue to serve our partners and clients.

A waypoint is a navigational term that refers to a point in a journey that helps you know where you are and where you are going. Sailors use waypoints to avoid unseen obstacles, to understand whether they are pacing according to expectations, and to ensure they will make it to their destination. In our new venture, we believe this is the perfect metaphor for our approach to the work. (We also have a former member of the Coast Guard and a college rower on our founding team!)

We are a small, tight-knit group with deep expertise and complementary skill sets. We believe the sum of our parts — our lived experience across state and federal agencies, school boards, foundation leadership, the White House, media, state legislatures and education agencies, and classroom teaching – adds up to a strategic whole.

Our superpower is our line of sight. We can see the problem and the solution from multiple angles. We believe in spending time at each waypoint and understanding the pros and the cons of policy, practice, and communications strategies before reaching a final destination. We often say our favorite scope of work is to “get in the boat and row.” At our most strategic, we have the ability to set new waypoints in response to ever-changing external factors and things unseen.

There has never been a more urgent time to be in business to improve education. We feel so fortunate to be supporting a portfolio of partners who collectively are tackling some of the most intractable issues facing today’s students, families, and educators: ensuring parents have an accurate picture of their child’s academic achievement, pandemic learning loss and recovery, access to high quality instructional materials and aligned professional learning, next generation assessments and accountability, and the expansion of options for families in need.

We will continue to be a specialized strategic consulting firm focused on K-12 education policy development, communications, and advocacy grounded in research and listening. Because our existing clients and projects are transitioning with us, we start this new endeavor with an ambitious portfolio of people and work that we love.

Over the years, we have worked alongside amazing partners doing extraordinary work to shine a bright light on the inequities in our education system, including: Learning Heroes, the Collaborative for Student Success, US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research, SAS, Walton Family Foundation, College Board, Charter School Growth Fund, Smarter Balanced, state education agencies in California, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia – and the list goes on.

We are eager to chart our new course.

Anchors aweigh,