Sylvan Leaning Offers Five Effective Study Skills for a Successful School Year
To help parents kick start the new school year successfully, Sylvan Learning located in Shawnee, part of the nation's premier provider of tutoring, is offering five critical steps to help families make learning fun and easy.
"The most common problems that keep students from studying effectively are in a few key areas, including knowing how to approach information, comprehension, test-taking methods, and personal learning styles," says Dave Larsen of Sylvan Learning. "By taking just a few simple steps, families and students can plan effective study skills for a successful academic school year."
Five Effective Study Skills for Families:
- Partnership for Success - Communicate with your child and identify the changes that need to be made to bring grades up and improve learning.
- Time and Place is Critical - Parents can assist in recognizing when a student works best and create a schedule around their child's learning style.
- The Ultimate Objective - Parents can lead their children to critically break down the information or assignment.
- Celebrate Achievements - Reinforce not just excellence, but also improvements and progress. Reward the little things.
- One on One - Individual instruction can help develop strong study skills, particularly if your child needs increased attention.
To understand a child's learning style and lay the foundation for a better school year, Sylvan Learning in Shawnee is offering parents a FREE Learning Style quiz. Take the quiz and better understand your child's learning personality.
Get more information on back to school resources offered by Sylvan Learning. For additional information, please contact Sylvan Learning in Shawnee at 913.381.8755.
Deffenbaugh Industries Employees Help Harvesters Feed Kansas City’s Hungry
Deffenbaugh Industries employees recently traded their high visibility attire for gloves and hairnets to help Harvesters Community Food Network. More than 70 Deffenbaugh Industries employees, along with family members and friends volunteered their time at Harvesters, sorting frozen foods and repackaging flour during a 3.5 hour volunteer experience. From finance to drivers to sales to customer service to mechanics: employees from every department were at Harvesters to lend a hand for Kansas City’s hungry.
“We are trash people,” said Joe Gadwood, who leads the residential trash and recycling collection department for Deffenbaugh Industries, “so we are not afraid of hard work.” Gadwood brought along his daughter Bailey, 15, who with her father spent time sealing packages of flour at Harvesters. “We are happy to help. At Deffenbaugh Industries we have always supported the local community. We like to give back to organizations that support basic needs…and this is about as basic as it gets – there are a lot of hungry people in the Kansas City area.”
Gadwood also commented that many of the drivers participated in the one week food drive that led up to the volunteer day. “Even the guys who had to work today brought in food. We had a lot of participation.” The company sponsored a non-perishable food drive for the week immediately preceding the volunteer day at Harvesters. In just five days, employees donated enough non-perishable food to fill seven new, 65-gallon trash carts for Harvesters. From “10-cans of tuna Thursday” to a department-wide contest culminating in a pizza day, employees throughout the company got in the giving spirit. Deffenbaugh Industries matched employee donations with a cash donation.
To help Harvesters through your own food drive or volunteer experience, please call 816.929.3000 or email volunteer@harvesters.org. For more information about Deffenbaugh Industries, please call 913.631.3300.
Representative Dennis Moore To Join Sharon Lane Health Services in Welcoming National RV Tour “Driving for Quality Care”
U.S. Representative Dennis Moore and wife Stephene Moore will pledge their ongoing support for quality senior care at a Driving for Quality Care event to be held at Sharon Lane Health Services – A National Quality Award Winning Facility. With vulnerable seniors’ continued access to quality rehabilitation, skilled nursing and assisted living care in direct jeopardy as emergency federal Medicaid relief remains stalled on Capitol Hill, the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) nationwide Driving for Quality Care petition initiative will arrive at their tour’s 36th stop at Sharon Lane Health Services on August 20, 2010 at 10 a.m.
The organizers of Driving for Quality Care said the nationwide RV tour will empower seniors, family members, and caregivers by inviting them to sign the initiative’s actual or online national petition, to reach out to local legislators, to recruit supporters via social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, and to follow the tour’s progress from Washington, DC to Long Beach, CA on its interactive website.
“Even if Congress passes the emergency FMAP extension – which it must – the Medicaid program itself will confront a steep funding cliff in the years ahead that can only be resolved by passing federal legislation to address the chronic and growing underfunding of senior care…Our profession’s robust quality improvement agenda and our ability to improve staffing stability in the face of an unprecedented demographic challenge require passage of the Nursing Home Patient & Medicaid Assistance Act of 2010.” The Nursing Home Patient & Medicaid Assistance Act of 2010 (H.R. 5457) would assist long term and rehabilitation centers by providing supplemental Medicaid payments for specific nursing facilities.
A recent national poll from The Mellman Group finds that Americans, by significant margins, strongly support passage of federal Medicaid relief and are vehemently opposed to any additional state Medicaid cuts. Significantly, 62% of the likely voters polled favor passage of federal Medicaid relief; 78% oppose additional state Medicaid cuts beyond those already enacted by Governors and state legislatures; and 64% are more likely to vote against state lawmakers voting for more cuts to seniors’ Medicaid-funded nursing home care.
View the specific RV Tour Itinerary and additional information.
City of Shawnee Recognized for New Policing Program
On Wednesday, August 11, David Strickland, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Administrator, a top Obama administration official, visited the Shawnee Justice Center to observe firsthand the efforts that are being made in the department’s new approach to law enforcement. Mr. Strickland addressed the media and members of the Police Department to acknowledge their efforts in implementing this efficient and innovative method of providing law enforcement services.
In July, the Shawnee Police Department implemented a new method of reducing crime and enhancing traffic safety called DDACTS (Data Driven Approach to Crime and Traffic Safety). DDACTS empowers Police Officers to police smarter by using scientific data collected by the department's Crime Analysis Unit to direct them into areas where targeted enforcement will have an impact on crime reduction and traffic safety. Long term impacts of the method are believed to lead to the prevention of crime through a process of displacement and erosion of crime. The Shawnee Police Department is the first law enforcement agency in the nation to implement the DDACTS operational strategies after learning about the program at a DDACTS workshop.
City of Shawnee Awarded Grant for Clear Creek Recreational Trail Phase III
The Kansas Department of Transportation announced that the City of Shawnee has been awarded a Transportation Enhancement grant for the construction of Phase III of the Clear Creek Pedestrian/Bicycle Trail. Phase I is completed and Phase II of the Clear Creek Trail is scheduled for construction this fall and also includes funding through the Kansas Department of Transportation. The overall Clear Creek Trail plan includes five phases and when completed will go from West 79th street to the Johnson County Park and Recreation District Streamway Trail System.
Phase III will start at 61st and Woodland Drive, go east to the Johnson County Park and recreation District Streamway Trail System. The City of Shawnee has a well developed, extensive bicycle trail network that has been recognized as a Bronze Level Bicycle Friendly Community by the American League of Bicyclist. Phase III will extend the trail system 1.02 miles.
Mayor Jeff Meyers stated, "I was very excited that we had one of the 18 projects selected from 55 applications this year. I am very proud of the hard work our Parks and Recreation staff put into the application to secure this funding. These grants allow us to build projects that have a direct impact on the quality of life in Shawnee by increasing opportunities for healthy, outdoor recreational activities, now and in the future."
The total project cost is estimated at $1.2 million with the grant providing 60 percent or a maximum reimbursement of $714,566.
