Cynthia Miner Kapelke Educational Therapist

Learning Frameworks is founded by Cynthia Miner Kapelke, Educational Therapist/Professional Level, M.Ed., M.A..

Cindy offers years of experience in education working with bright and exceptional learners in Bay Area schools and learning programs including public, private, and nonprofit settings.  With a home-based practice in Alameda, California, Cindy meets K-8th grade learners one-to-one and small groups. She also supports and collaborates on student success teams at schools. Schools have hired her on request to share her knowledge and practices for development presentations to teachers and parents.

Background Training

  • Holy Names University, Oakland – Masters in Education, Educational Therapist Certificate, and Mild/Moderate teaching credential coursework
  • Luna Dance Institute – Summer Institute Cohort 2019
  • Mindfulness Training, Mindful Schools, Emeryville
  • Coursework for Educational Therapy through UC Berkeley Extension
  • Slingerland Training in San Francisco with Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D.
  • New York University – Masters in French, completed in Paris
  • Boston College – Bachelor of Arts in English and French

School Site Experience

  • Park Day School, Oakland, CA
  • Mills College Children’s School, Oakland, CA
  • Sunnyside Micro-School, Oakland, CA
  • Beacon Day School, Oakland, CA
  • Rising Star Montessori, Alameda, CA
  • St. Philip Neri, Alameda, CA
  • Bentley School, Berkeley, CA
  • Academy of Alameda, Alameda, CA
  • Raskob Summer Clinic, Oakland, CA – for supervised hours

Her Journey Into Education

Since 2001, Cindy has collaborated with Bay Area families to promote strengths-based learning techniques for K-8 learners to surmount challenges and amplify a sense of success. Before her career as an educator, Cindy worked in marketing and publishing. She drove across the US in 1998, landing in San Francisco and founding a marketing practice serving magazine publishers and web site companies. When volunteering for San Francisco School Volunteers at public school sites in her Bernal Heights neighborhood, she found this part of her day the most rewarding. She also saw that classrooms had struggling learners that were beyond what the teachers were able to support. Consequently, she shifted her energy to learning how to help struggling students, by working at a Beacon Community Center at Everett Middle School in San Francisco’s Mission district, founding a tutoring practice, and pursuing her Educational Therapist Certificate. She had the good fortune to learn from Slingerland Teachers such as Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D. and Elinor Liberman, taking another part-time position at A.P. Giannini Middle School with Ms. Liberman. Other influential local mentors and teachers include Dr. Charles Ahern, Dr. Ann Gordon, and Marion Marshall, MS, BCET, FAET at Holy Names University. In addition to the inspiration of students and teachers, Cindy also drew on the experiences of some family members who have overcome dyslexia and ADHD to become successful, well-educated adults.

Now a full-fledged Educational Therapist with a Masters in Education and at the Professional Level in the Association of Educational Therapists, she is sole proprietor of Learning Frameworks. Cindy works to support growing learners and partner with the families, schools, and systems that care for them. Her experience includes working as a school-based learning specialist, running a public school reading program, serving as an educational consultant, leading small groups, training teaching teams, and at the heart of her work, spending time directly with students one-to-one as their private ET. Using research-based programs and a neuropsychological framework, she connects with students based on where they are, looking to engage them in the process, and dynamically address their approach to tasks.

Cindy’s formal degrees include a Masters in Education, Certificate in Educational Therapy, Mild-Moderate Teaching Credential courses at Holy Names University with a case study thesis on a twice-exceptional learner. Prior to education studies, she completed a Masters in French from New York University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and French language from Boston College.

In addition to seeing students and families at her home office in Alameda, she has traveled to East Bay schools such as Mills College Children’s School, Sunnyside Micro-School, Beacon Day School, Rising Star Montessori, St. Philip Neri, Bentley School, Academy of Alameda, and Park Day School.

To support public school learning, she volunteers with the Alameda Unified School District, most recently on its Homework Working Group to advise policy for the district. Cindy hopes to develop opportunities to increase accessibility to the types of successful programs and techniques that have made a difference in her students’ learning capacities, and seeks connection with practitioners and organizations that promote successful practices for a neurodiverse world.

Beyond her work life, she spends time dancing, gardening, taking nature walks, listening to behavioral science podcasts, connecting with friends, and spending as much time as she can with her two school-age children, hubby, and two poodle-mix rescue pups, Bear and Kiki.