Gary Hess is an educator, instructional leader, and leadership coach with nearly four decades of experience in public education. His career has spanned roles as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, school administrator, principal, staff developer, and national school leadership coach. Through his work with Instructional Empowerment and the Marzano Evaluation Center, Gary has supported educators and school and district leaders across multiple states in strengthening instruction, leadership practice, and implementation.
As principal of an urban elementary school in the School District of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Gary led continuous improvement while serving a highly diverse, economically disadvantaged student population. His leadership centered on standards-based instruction, collaborative professional learning, classroom observation, evidence-based feedback, and continuous improvement. He has extensive experience with the Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model and Essentials for Achieving Rigor and has also supported Pennsylvania schools identified for Comprehensive Support and Improvement.
Gary’s work has since expanded to large-scale leadership development and instructional transformation. He has coached principals, assistant principals, district leaders, and leadership teams in building coherent systems for classroom observation, feedback, professional learning, implementation, and school improvement. In one multi-year district partnership, he coached 46 high school leaders across seven schools while helping develop repeatable improvement systems grounded in classroom evidence, leadership calibration, and continuous improvement.
Gary believes sustainable improvement occurs when professional learning moves beyond an event and becomes part of how educators work, learn, and improve together. He brings an evidence-based, practical approach to helping educators translate research and instructional frameworks into stronger daily practice. Gary holds both a Master of Education in Educational Leadership and a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Millersville University of Pennsylvania, as well as ESL certification from Pennsylvania State University.
