WriterCoach Connection

Berkeley school superintendent visits WriterCoach Connection volunteers in action

Earlier this month, Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Bill Huyett visited our writer coaches in action with 8th-grade students at King Middle School in Berkeley. As the photo below clearly demonstrates, Mr. Huyett remained actively engaged throughout his visit, sitting with individual coach-student pairs for a very close look at the magic of writer coaching.

BUSD Superintendent Bill Huyett is clearly focused on the connection between WCC coach Jacquie Hale and a King Middle School student during a site visit in early December.

Bob Menzimer

WriterCoach Connection featured in Oaktown Teen Times

The December 2010 edition of the Oaktown Teen Times features a story by Media Academy student Jazmin Garcia about WriterCoach Connection at Media Academy and Mandela High School. You can access the paper on the WCC website. Hit the News & Events tab at the top of the homepage, then select News Media from the dropdown menu. The WCC story is on Page 3.

WCC has entered its third consecutive year at Media, serving all of teacher Sonja Totten-Harris' tenth-grade students. Writer coaching came to Mandela this fall, serving all tenth graders in the classes of teacher John Nepomuceno. Meantime, we're delighted to announce that WCC will expand to all of Mandela's ninth graders this spring, in the classes of teacher Deborah Juarez.

Courtesy of photographer and Media Academy student Jennifer Truong and the Oaktown Teen Times, here are the coaches at work with students at Mandela.

Bob Menzimer

Save money and support WriterCoach Connection? Oh, yeah!

We're bursting at the seams, with new writer-coach programs at three school sites this year, bringing us up to nine schools in four districts. To support all these new coaches working at all these schools with all these students, we need something else to burst at the seams: our coffers! And the end of the calendar year gives you a chance to help make it happen while SAVING ON YOUR TAXES. Since we're a nonprofit outfit, your year-end donation (or a gift at any other time of year, for that matter) is TAX DEDUCTIBLE to the full extent allowed by law. 

If you're a previous donor to WriterCoach Connection, you'll soon be getting an appeal letter from our board chair, Kathy Kahn, with an easy-response reply envelope and everything. But you don't have to wait for the letter. You can donate any time online--it's simple and fast. Or you can save us the 3% cut the online vendor takes by sending a check payable to Community Alliance for Learning (CAFL, if you want to save ink), PO Box 6098, Albany, CA 94706.

However you do it, you'll be helping us build on our momentum, and that means more writing support for more students in more schools. 

Many thanks!

Bob Menzimer