Public schools are in crisis, with not enough funding to properly educate all students or provide individualized attention to student needs. But frustrated parents have at least one additional solution — to enroll a student into the Sylvan Learning Center to compensate for what the public schools are unable to provide.

“Public school can’t do it all for every kid,” said Maribeth Lovelace, who runs the Sylvan Learning Center in Silverdale. “So we offer an alternative, finding where the student needs the most help and providing support in that area.”

The Silverdale Sylvan facility is one of 900 worldwide, all dedicated to the concept of supplemental learning. They follow what is dubbed “the Sylvan Methodology,” which strives to find the areas of academic frustration and creates a personal curriculum that provides instruction in that area.

Lovelace said that public schools too often follow a “one size fits all” pattern that doesn’t recognize students’ individual needs.

Sylvan’s 150 Silverdale students don’t follow a specific demographic, aside from their desire to accomplish some extracurricular learning. Many are current public school students who need a little remedial help or an extra boost in a particularly tough subject. The instruction is highly focused and individualized, and Sylvan’s staff works with the public school to determine exactly what the student needs.

“We are not trying to take over what the schools are doing,” Lovelace said. “We are providing a supplement. Some students are successful in making the learning system work for them, while others have difficulties and require more direct, individualized instruction. So we offer help to kids who don’t stand out as ‘learning disabled’ and aren’t easily recognized as having special needs.”

Lovelace began working at Sylvan in 1993 when she first moved to the Northwest, and took over the franchise in 1998. Prior to that she earned a masters degree in education and taught middle school language arts for nine years.

Lovelace doesn’t think that the public school model will change significantly in the near term, and it won’t be able to move too much closer to providing more individualized instruction. At the same time, she expects to send her children (age 2 and a newborn) to public schools when the time comes.

“I am a firm believer in public education,” she said. “It’s just that some kids need a little help through the process.”.