Community Alliance for Learning

Inspired by early evidence of the WriterCoach Connection’s extraordinary acceptance, a group of WriterCoach Connection coaches and parents founded the non-profit Community Alliance for Learning (CAFL) in the summer of 2001 and sought tax deductible 501(c)(3) status as a charitable corporation.

Mission

Clear writing and critical thinking are essential to students' success in school and in life. WriterCoach Connection brings trained community volunteers into the classroom to give students at all levels of ability the one-on-one help they need to master these skills.

Vision

CAFL envisions trained community volunteers, in partnership with teachers, helping every public school student master thinking and writing skills.

Goals

CAFL’s charter includes several purposes:

• Develop and promote education programs utilizing community volunteers.
• Train volunteers to partner with teachers and act as education coach/mentors.
• Assist teachers to work successfully with volunteer coaches.
• Give parents practical skills for helping their children with their homework.
• Regenerate community support for schools.

WriterCoach Connection

In keeping with its mission of strengthening public schools, CAFL helps sustain and grow WriterCoach Connection (WCC).

WCC focuses on the importance of writing for teachers, administrators, and students. Sharpening classroom focus on individual student writing, the program helps teachers convey the skills that lead students to writing proficiency. It also tends to create unity of effort among teachers, as they share their concern for writing and the approaches to teaching it using coaches throughout a school.

During coaching sessions, an attentive ear and a guiding hand, unique aspects of WCC, help a student express ideas clearly, enhancing critical thinking and writing skills. The effect on students of sitting with a caring, skilled adult makes a powerful return impact on coaches, who typically develop a firm dedication to their students' progress and to the program in general.

We work with our partner schools and teachers in support of assessment efforts, addressing curricular goals and benchmarks for writing proficiency, and in addressing challenges regarding student achievement and the ‘achievement gap.’

CAFL's WriterCoach Connection Staff

Robert Menzimer, Executive Director (see bio below).

Lynn Mueller, CAFL Associate Director Lynn Mueller joined WCC as a volunteer writing coach in 2003 and subsequently became CAFL's volunteer manager, business manage,r and operations director. She holds a Bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of California Berkeley, a B. F. A. in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute, and taught photography in community colleges. Her desire to combine words with images and to use art to make a difference led her to the documentary film program at Stanford University where she completed a Master's degree in communication. She wrote, produced, and directed the Academy Award-nominated Silver into Gold. She is a founding director and officer of a non-profit, Independent Filmworks Inc., and has served as a non-profit consultant. In addition, she has years of experience as administrator for a high-profile San Francisco law firm. Ms. Mueller lives in Berkeley with her husband. Their son attends Vassar College.

Jayne Walker, Director of Instruction Jayne L. Walker was an assistant professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University and then at U.C. Berkeley, where she had received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. She is the author of The Making of a Modernist: Gertrude Stein from Three Lives to Tender Buttons,and several scholarly articles. Before joining the University Writing Program faculty at UC Davis, she worked as a literary agent and developmental editor. At U.C. Davis, she taught the full range of undergraduate writing courses, from freshman composition to journalism and business report writing, and trained and mentored new graduate student instructors. As soon as she retired in 2007, she started coaching for WriterCoach Connection, struck by the similarities between its philosophy and methods and her own teaching strategies. Her passion for teaching writing has led her to ever-deeper involvement with WriterCoach Connection --as a trainer, grant writer and researcher, and Director of Instruction. She is also writing a book with David Reid, The Last Revolution of the Word: Anarchists, Beats, and Diggers in San Francisco.

CAFL's Board of Directors
April 2010

Kathleen Kahn, Chairperson and Director
Kathleen Kahn earned a BA from UC Berkeley in 1966 and JD from University of San Francisco Law School, 1975. For most of the past twenty-five years, Ms. Kahn has worked as a criminal defense lawyer at the appellate level. Formerly with the State Public Defender, she joined the nonprofit First District Appellate Project in 1979 as a staff attorney. The project contracts to manage the appointment, supervision, and training of attorneys to take criminal appeals by appointment from the Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court. For three years, she clerked for California Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird. Her volunteer activities include Membership Secretary, Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club; and Board member, Berkeley Art Center. A 1961 graduate of Berkeley High School, Ms. Kahn has been volunteering as a coach with the WriterCoach Connection at Berkeley High since 2002.

Katherine Koelle, Vice Chairperson and Director
A Master’s degree in writing from the University of San Francisco caps Katherine Koelle's academic preparation with the Bay Area Writing Project and a secondary teaching credential from UC Berkeley. She has twenty years teaching experience at secondary and college levels, has done extensive curriculum planning, works with diverse student populations, and promotes community involvement in the schools. She has focused most recently on school-to-career advancement, working with high school and community college instructors, and in the Tech Prep arena, and has taken leadership to establish articulation agreements and certification.

Kathleen Hallam, Secretary and Director
Kathleen Hallam has a Master’s degree in English from San Jose State University, experience as a community college instructor and lecturer in composition, literature and writing skills, and extensive practical work in technical writing, copy editing, and free-lance editing.  She has worked with WriterCoach Connection since 2002, serving schools in all of CAFL’s districts, first as Willard Middle School site coordinator; then coordinating the eighth-grade program in Berkeley at all three of the district’s middle schools; then serving as the program’s site co-coordinator at Albany Middle School, then shifting back to Berkeley as the WCC site coordinator at King Middle School while mentoring the site coordinators and coaching at the program’s newest site, Media Academy in Oakland.

Harish Goli, Treasurer and Director
Harish Goli has over ten years of experience working for the technology sector. He has held programming, mathematical modeling, engineering and product management roles. His undergraduate degree in computer science and mathematics is from Mangalore University in India and he is pursuing an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.

LuNell Anderson, Director
LuNell Anderson is an Administrative Judge with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board in the Western Regional Office in San Francisco. She has served as a hearing attorney with the Federal Communications Commission in the Broadcast Hearing Division in Washington, D.C. and as an attorney-advisor with the Board of Immigration Appeals. She holds a Bachelor's degree in sociology from the UC Berkeley and a doctorate in law from Hastings College of the Law. At Berkeley High School she has been a founding member of PCAD, Parents of Children of African Descent. Judge Anderson has volunteered at Berkeley High School with WriterCoach Connection since 2001.

Edmund Bussey, Jr., Director
Edmund Bussey, Jr. graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. He was employed for twenty years with the Bechtel Corporation as senior engineer for a variety of engineering projects in the U.S.A., Great Britain, and Saudi Arabia. As a consultant for San Francisco Municipal Railroad, he wrote manuals for operation, maintenance, and repair for cable cars. Also, he designed fare collection systems for buses. As Chair for Higher Education and Campus Ministry for his church, he located many scholarships for students over a period of twelve years. He has served as a voluntary reader to first graders at a Richmond elementary school since 2001 and has served as a coach for the WriterCoach Connection since 2005.

Denis Clifford, Director
Denis Clifford is an estate planning lawyer in Berkeley, the author of a number of self-help law books published by Nolo Press, an essay writer, and painter. He is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review, has a BA in English from Amherst, and has long been interested in education and teaching writing. While with Alameda County Legal Services from l967 to 1973, he worked with various groups and task forces to improve learning in the Oakland public schools. Mr. Clifford has served as a WriterCoach Connection coach at Berkeley High School and currently coaches at Media Academy in Oakland. His experiences as a writer coach have taught him the value and effectiveness of the WriterCoach Connection, and prompted him to join the board of directors.

Loretta Kane, Director
Loretta Kane received her BA from Queens College (CUNY) in New York City, where she majored in English literature and minored in creative writing and education. She received her MA in language studies from San Francisco State University, where she also received a certificate in composition studies and the teaching of writing. Dr. Kane received her PhD in education from the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied cognition and literacy. She taught all levels of composition, from “remedial” to advanced, at San Francisco State University, where she was the assistant director of the Reading and Writing Lab. She taught for the Subject A Program at the University of California, Berkeley and high school English at Alhambra High School in Martinez, where she was the head of the English department. Dr. Kane was a field supervisor, guiding student teachers enrolled in the Multicultural Urban Secondary English (MUSE) Credential and Master’s program at the University of California at Berkeley. She taught an academic literacy class at the San Francisco Art Institute and currently teaches inthe Secondary Education Departmentat San Jose State University, and teaches reading and composition, critical thinking, and an introduction to education course at Berkeley City College. Dr. Kane has presented her research at professional conferences nationwide and recently published a book entitled Conceptualizing Academic Essay Writing.

Marty Price, Director
Earl “Marty” Price received his BA from the University of California at Irvine, where he majored in Comparative Cultures, researching African American literature and presenting his senior thesis on the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, with a minor in Latin American Studies, specifically political integration in the Cuban Revolution. He later did graduate studies at Stanford on political and economic integration of Afro-Cubans in the Cuban Revolution. While at Stanford, he completed a union apprenticeship program as an Exhibit Builder. He has continued his membership in his trade union after serving on the Central Labor Council of Alameda County and the Building Trades Council. While on the Building Trades Council he renewed and revitalized the Joint Apprenticeship Training Program, which led him back to education. He received his MS in Education Leadership and Administration from Cal State, Hayward. He has taught at every level from elementary through senior high school. Mr. Price has served the Alameda County Office of Education both as a Multi-cultural Trainer and as Principal/Coordinator of Court and Community Schools. He also was part of the administrative team that revitalized the school culture at Oakland Technical High School from 2000-2005. He has formerly worked on curriculum development in three school districts, with a specialty in Language Arts Development. Mr. Price is a member of the board of Directors of the Kendra Alexander Foundation and is a past board member of the Youth Employment Project in East Oakland.

Robert Menzimer, Executive Director and ex oficio Director
Writing has filled Robert Menzimer’s life since he composed his first short story in pencil on a sheet of white tablet paper in third grade. From the Broadcast Journalism program at the University of Illinois, he began ten years in radio, as an announcer, news writer, producer, and program director. In 1984, he joined the information services company Meganews, Inc. as program director, supervising writers, editors, voice talent, and computer programmers and later became president of the company. His freelance writing background includes clients in education, marketing, and health care, and his background as a private tutor includes students and English Language Learner adults in writing and English. He served for two years in the Peace Corps in Bolivia, working as a public health technician and teaching English to elementary school students. His association with WriterCoach Connection began with volunteer coaching in 2004. Thereafter, he served for a year as the WCC site coordinator at Albany High School before becoming CAFL’s executive director in July of 2006.

Advisory Board

Wendy Breuer

David Cole

Mary Lee Cole

Ellen Felker

Carol Olsen

Mike Rose

Martine Makower