Welcome Back to School, Tahoma!
Back to School season is upon us! Welcome all returning and new Tahoma families. We hope you had a lovely summer and are excited for the new school year.
Here are some links and tips to help your family get off to the best start possible this year.
Volunteering and getting involved in the district: Do you know who the primary volunteer group for your school is? Check out our extensive list of local PTAs and PTOs under the Family Involvement section. Joining these groups as a member helps them fund all of their programs over the school year. There is no obligation to volunteer, but of course volunteers are always welcome.
If you have a student with a disability or who is involved in special education, there’s a new PTA that might be helpful for your family. They are called the Tahoma School District Special Education/Disabilities PTA Committee, and can be found at their website or Facebook group.
Have a student in one of Tahoma’s highly capable programs? These include Cougar classrooms and the Discovery program in elementary school, advanced ELA/SS and math classes in middle school, and advanced, college in the classroom, or AP courses in high school. The PATH, or Parents Advocates for Tahoma’s Highly-Capable, can help answer any questions you have. They can be found at the PATH website here or the PATH Facebook group here.
If you want to volunteer in a Tahoma school, you will first need to receive volunteer clearance from the district. That typically takes a couple weeks for verification, and can be done online at this site.
Your student might also be involved in an extracurricular program that has its own booster club. That information should be provided by the club itself, once that group gets going for the season. Feel free to reach out to us if you need help finding your booster club!
School start times and supply lists: There are nine schools with four total start times in the Tahoma district, to accommodate for buses. To find the start time for your school, as well as any supply lists provided, find your school on the district website.
Transportation: To find your student’s bus information, plug in your address and student information on the district Transportation site using the VersaTrans e-Link. If you’ll be driving this year, be sure to keep an eye out for local construction projects. The City of Maple Valley website provides updated information for local construction projects, including information on a project that will be impacting the road in front of Summit Trail Middle School this fall.
Skyward communication: Skyward is a third party program that Tahoma uses for some of its communication and information organization. There are two ways to access Skyward for your family. The first is through the district website, and the second is using the phone app. Skyward is where you can keep track of your student’s basic information, schedule, teacher name(s), and eventually continuously updated grades and missing assignments from middle school on. Unfortunately, you can’t use the phone app to do things like pay for school lunches or ASB cards. That has to be done through the district portal.
