Central Middle School tutoring affected by Cape Sylvan closure

The May 7 closure of the Sylvan Learning Center in Cape Girardeau will force a change in tutoring plans next year at Central Middle School.

Six percent of students enrolled at the school became eligible for tutoring services in 2008 after the school missed targets on communication arts exams required by the No Child Left Behind Act. Nineteen of 300 eligible families completed paperwork by Dec. 1 for their children to attend the sessions at Sylvan Learning Center.

Principal Mark Kiehne said eight students used the tutoring services.

"I was shocked to learn that it closed," Kiehne said. "It was nice to have a center to work with locally but I'm confident we'll find other options."

Kiehne said the services Sylvan Learning Center offers are essential to improving students' skills. Improvement efforts have included in-house tutoring programs such as the Cub Club program, which is attended by an average of 70 students, an increase from 45 the previous year.

Since the center closed when the students had a few weeks left in the school year, Kiehne said those at his school were not immediately affected. Kiehne said school leaders will seek out other tutoring options for the next academic year.

Meanwhile, an Illinois Sylvan Learning Center is offering to help customers affected by the closure.

Audra Berg, franchisee owner of the center in Carterville, Ill., said she will honor any prepaid hours customers had remaining at the Cape Girardeau center when it closed.

"This is a way I'm trying to help out those who had received help from a neighboring Sylvan Learning Center," Berg said. "We're local people and trying to help local people.

"We are willing to do whatever we can to service these families and the school district," she said. "We are currently in the process of contacting the district to see what we can do in helping them."

Customers learned through a letter written by franchisee owner Jack Stanley that the center had closed and how they could contact him regarding refunds from unused prepaid tutoring hours. Stanley told the Southeast Missourian in an e-mail that he would not issue any statements to the media and that issues with refunds would be handled with those parents.

"While the center closing didn't effect those students for this year, it's a nice gesture the Illinois Sylvan Learning Center offered," Kiehne said.

For more information on the Carterville Sylvan Learning Center, call 618-985-4519.

bblackwell@semissourian.com

388-3628

Pertinent addresses:

402 East Plaza Drive, Suite 3, Carterville, IL

107 West Drive, Suite A, Cape Girardeau, MO