Alice Thomas Memorial Fund

Alice Peale Pierce Thomas, beloved mother, grandmother, sister, best friend, and wife, passed away quietly and peacefully on November 3, 2022. She was surrounded by family. Alice was the founder, president, and CEO of the Center for Development and Learning (CDL), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (also known as the Center for Literacy and Learning).

A core mission of social justice drove her strong belief that all children, regardless of how they look, where they come from or how they learn, can and will achieve school success when provided with highly effective teachers and positive, supportive learning environments.

In founding and growing CDL, Alice changed the lives of countless tens of thousands by permanently changing the nature of education at a local, national, and international level – and by reforming the very way that teachers teach. A career educator for 30+ years, Alice had been a teacher, counselor, and intervention specialist in inner city, suburban and rural public schools, and she served as a co-instructor for graduate-level courses at Louisiana universities.

She was the author of numerous education articles, the lead author of Right from Birth© parent training curriculum and the Learning Profiles: Differentiated Instruction for Diverse Learners© professional development curriculum, and was the creator and director of the Plain Talk About Reading Institute. Alice delivered hundreds of sessions on learning and teaching and presented at national and international conferences.

For over 20 years, she assembled and directed CDL’s annual Plain Talk education and literacy conferences where international thought leaders disseminated best practices and trained thousands of local, national, and international educators. Alice pioneered fundamental changes in education and literacy through her efforts of assembling the best minds and educational leaders from around the world. She taught thousands of teachers how to better recognize and better serve students with dyslexia and alternative learning styles.

More than anything else, Alice loved her children, Scott Thomas, Amanda L. Thomas, and C. Russell Thomas, and her beloved husband and best friend of 46 years, David C. Thomas. With an unbreakable will, Alice moved mountains to ensure her family’s well-being and happiness, and she succeeded. She would often say, “I love you, as big as the sky!”, and she did.