WriterCoach Connection

Obama-Biden volunteer service plan: right in our wheelhouse

Regarding the Obama-Biden Plan for Universal Voluntary Citizen Service, one of the elements of the plan is this:

"Classroom Corps to help teachers and students, with a priority placed on high-need and underserved schools....The Corps will enlist parents, grandparents, college students or community members to mentor and provide one-on-one assistance to students, and assist with classroom activities under the direction of teachers."

Sounds a lot like WriterCoach Connection to me.

And one of the four primary tenets of the plan is "Invest in the Capacity of Nonprofits to Innovate and Expand Successful Program across the Country." This section of the Obama-Biden plan suggests that:

1. WCC will benefit from the federal government's increased (and long overdue) emphasis on citizen service, as we expand our coach recruitment efforts.

2. We may be able to access federal funding for WCC, inasmuch as it precisely fits the program profile the plan seeks to support, to wit: "By leveraging federal dollars, Obama and Biden will foster the use of best practices of the private sector to nurture innovation in the nonprofit sector. This will help identify programs that work and expand them to be scalable in other markets, which will increase the efficiency and impact of the nonprofit sector as a whole."

The full text of the Obama-Biden plan is at:

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/NationalServicePlanFactSheet.pdf

Through the nonprofit Network for Good, I have signed up for a membership with the Grant Station program, which will notify us of federal grant programs in support of education.

Meantime, I plan to write to President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to help build awareness of the effectiveness of WriterCoach Connection.

Bob Menzimer

Charting the course ahead

Projected massive cuts in the state education budget have placed the burden of severely reduced spending directly on local school districts. We expect all three of the school districts we serve (Albany, Berkeley, and Oakland) to be impacted heavily, with serious implications regarding funding support for WriterCoach Connection at our seven schools.

To develop strategies for coping with these budget realities, we have formed the CAFL Ahead of the Curve Committee (ACC). This group of CAFL associates will hold a day-long skull session, tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 31, to formulate alternative, lower-cost service-delivery methods for writer coaching and to create the basis for a revised strategic plan for the full CAFL board of directors at its annual meeting in March.

Bob Menzimer