Veteran WCC coach Kevin Westbrooke was in Europe this spring to visit his daughters and figured Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was not a bad place to practice the Bach mass he is singing with the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra. Not a bad place to promote WriterCoach Connection, either!
Bob Menzimer
A robust year of work by WriterCoach Connection volunteers concluded in May and June with enthusiastic flourishes at all six of our school sites, as students, teachers, and coaches celebrated the collaborations that made the program a rousing success for 2009-10. When the final coaching sessions concluded, 384 dedicated WCC volunteers had worked with 19 teachers in 46 classes, sitting down with 1,285 students for one-on-one writing conferences 9,763 times. Whew!
This scene at Media Academy in Oakland was repeated thousands of times in East Bay schools in 2009-10, as coaches huddled with students to help advance teachers' learning goals and guide the development of writing and critical thinking skills.
WCC's invaluable site coordinators made all this happen, deftly orchestrating the activities of innumerable coach teams in support of teachers and students. These wizards of organization include Sahi-Amar Khalsa (Community Partnerships Academy at Berkeley High), Kathleen Hallam (King Middle School, Berkeley), Annie Stine and Mark Pasley (Longfellow Middle School, Berkeley), Jeanine Brown (Willard Middle School, Berkeley), Karen Larson (Media Academy, Oakland), and Teresa Barnett and Peg Healy (Albany Middle School).
Our site coordinators and volunteer coaches deserve their summer break! Meantime, Community Alliance for Learning staff and board members are busy planning for WriterCoach Connection 2010-11.
Bob Menzimer
What most people are interested in about WriterCoach Connection is how the program works, whom it serves, what results it generates. People like to hear stories from our coaches and comments from the students and teachers with whom we work. But every once in awhile, I like to pause and recognize the people who are responsible for the powerful impact WCC makes in our public schools. Community Alliance for Learning, the nonprofit that runs WriterCoach Connection, is populated by a remarkable group of site coordinators and by a tiny but highly effective staff. And here they are, or most of them, at our spring site coordinator meeting.
The site coordinators are the linchpins of this program, the indispensable links in the chain of our success. They run the program at each school, managing teams of volunteers (and helping recruit them, too), and providing the crucial interface between the coaches and the teachers. Here they surround CAFL's associate director Lynn Mueller and our new director of instruction Jayne Walker. A remarkable core of talent and dedication.
Back, left to right: Annie Stine (Longfellow Middle School, Berkeley), Jeanine Brown (Willard Middle School, Berkeley), Lynn Mueller (Associate Director), Jayne Walker (Director of Instruction), Mark Pasley (Longfellow Middle School, Berkeley), Peg Healy (Albany Middle School). Front, left to right: Sahib-Amar Khalsa (Berkeley High), Kathleen Hallam (King Middle School, Berkeley), Karen Larson (Media Academy, Oakland). Not present: Teresa Barnett (Albany Middle School).
Bob Menzimer
One of the most welcome additions to WCC in the last few years has been the formation of an official UC Berkeley student organization to recruit Cal students as writer coaches for WCC. At its December 3 meeting, WriterCoach Connection at Berkeley expressed appreciation for the dedicated service to our middle and high school students and their teachers. And everyone at Community Alliance for Learning joins in that expression of gratitude! Our public-school kids LOVE their Cal coaches, who have energized our entire program with their skill, energy, and enthusiasm.
At the WCCB meeting on Dec. 3 were (top, left to right): Claire Hwang, Rachel Morgan, Leah Moskovic, Karlie Drutz, Jennifer Carr, Joanna Salem, and WCCB President Wei Liu. Bottom, left to right: Debbie Lieu, Jane Chong, Cal Volunteer Manager Briana Jauregui, WCCB Secretary Kelli-Jean Chun, and WCCB Treasurer Melissa Solano.
These Cal students have really transformed the ranks of our WCC coaches. Go Bears!
Bob Menzimer
For everyone who puts so much of his or her heart and soul into WriterCoach Connection, I wanted to relate something I heard this morning. It goes to the heart of why you support this program.
I was visiting CP Academy teacher Susannah Bell’s class at Berkeley High and amidst the buzz of coaching, Susannah pulled me aside and said, “I just want you to know that what happens here goes beyond just writer coaching. “ She then described a few examples of what her students are dealing with in their lives. Two homeless students. The student whose mother tried to kill her and is now serving a life sentence, and whose father, feeling the student was “too vain,” shaved her head. And there was much more. “The attention the coaches give these kids is saving their lives,” said Susannah. I had been staring off down the hall, trying to absorb what Susannah had been telling me, and when I looked back at her, she had tears in her eyes.
Right next to us were four examples of what Susannah was talking
about: coaches Christina Redse, Mack Levine, Teddy Bell, and Melissa Solano,
working with their students IN THE HALLWAY because there was no room for them
in Susannah’s crowded classroom. Nor were there even enough chairs. Christina
spent the entire coaching session crouching next to her student, and Mack
coached his student while both were sitting on the bare hallway floor.
Photographic evidence attached.
Annie Johnston, CP Academy Coordinator, is a tireless fundraiser on behalf of the school’s Writing for College program and WCC. I’ve been invited by Annie and Susannah to speak on behalf of WCC at a CP Academy presentation to the board of directors of In Dulci Jubilo on Dec. 17, and to thank them for supporting our program. I’ll be honored to do that, and to tell them, in the meantime, what a privilege it is to work with Annie, Susannah, and their colleague Ariel Morris. That privileged feeling is also generated by working with our BHS site coordinator Sahib-Amar Khalsa and all of her colleagues at our other sites, not to mention our hundreds of volunteer coaches. What was happening today at CP Academy, and what Susannah described to me, is happening at every one of our schools.
I believe that your dedication is well placed.
Robert Menzimer
Executive Director