Tahoma School District was founded in 1926 and currently has nine schools in operation: six elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school.

The Tahoma School District regularly ranks as one of the top districts in Washington state, and several of the extracurricular and sports teams are competitive statewide and nationally.

The Tahoma High School robotics club, Bear Metal, competed at the FIRST Worlds event in Houston in 2022

Tahoma’s We the People is competitive nationally

Information about Tahoma High School’s athletics program can be found on their site

The current Tahoma High School (THS) was opened in 2017. The size of the new high school enabled 9th graders to be included, which allowed for several schools to change purpose and caused district-wide boundary shifts. The former high school and former junior high school became Maple View Middle School and Summit Trail Middle School, respectively, and the two former middle schools were transformed into the Cedar River and Tahoma elementary schools.

Information about each of the district’s schools, including contact information for each school’s administration, can be found at https://www.tahomasd.us/schools.

The Tahoma School District superintendent is Mike Hanson who can be contacted by email at mhanson@tahomasd.us or phone at (425) 413-3400. Other members of the TSD administration can be found on the District’s site.

For school administration and staff members, including teachers, you can view  information for individual schools (https://www.tahomasd.us/schools) or you can look through the District’s Staff Directory.

Family Support Partners are in place at each school in the Tahoma School District. This is a new program in the district, with volunteers who can help your family with resources and support. This can be a good option for those who are new to the district, or any family dealing with a difficulty of some kind.

The Tahoma School District  board consists of five elected directors who each live in one of the five director districts that together make up the Tahoma School District. While each director must reside within the director district they represent, every voter within the boundaries of the Tahoma School District can vote for them, and any parent or citizen may contact them at any time.

Elections occur every two years. Tahoma Values will keep site visitors informed of  upcoming school board elections. Regular board meetings and work studies are subject to the Open Public Meeting Act (OPMA), and are thus open to the public.

General information about our current school board, including contact information, district boundaries, and board assignments, can be found on the District’s website. You can also find the meeting dates and times on our calendar. As of Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022, Tahoma School Board meetings are now recorded and archived. Those recordings can be found on this website.

CONTACTING MEMBERS of the SCHOOL BOARD

Here are a few tips when contacting members of the Tahoma school board:

School board members cannot make decisions outside of an open public meeting, which occur twice a month for most of the school year. While they can receive your concerns and help you find appropriate avenues for addressing them, they can’t make a change over email. If you make a public comment at a meeting, the board president can direct the superintendent to get in touch with you to address your concern, but the board cannot otherwise engage.

Keep in mind that anything you send to one board member may be forwarded to the rest of the school board and any appropriate school administration personnel. Furthermore, due to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), anyone can make a Public Records Request (PRR) of the school district. This means that anything you write to anyone in the district, including board members, can be subject to a PRR, and vice versa. In short, there is no guarantee of privacy when contacting the district via written format for any reason. If you or your student(s) are in a vulnerable position, consider using a pseudonym and alternative email address, or call instead of writing. Reach out to us (https://tahomavalues.org/contact) if you need more help with this. We have advocates and resources.

If you wish to make a public comment at a public school board meeting, you can find the rules at this site. You can also hand over a written copy of your spoken public comment to Tamara Wheeler, Executive Assitant to the Superintendent, at the meeting (Tamara records the minutes, and usually sits at one of the main tables at the side of the room.) If you would like to make a written comment over email only, email to Tamara Wheeler at twheeler@TahomaSD.US. She will then forward your comment on to the entire board, but due to a Washington state law change in June of 2022, these written comments will no longer be read out loud during board meetings.

Tahoma School District enjoys robust family involvement at every level. To volunteer in your elementary student’s classroom, contact your student’s teacher or the principal at your school. There are also parent-teacher groups at each school, who are always looking for volunteers. Some groups are under the banner of the national and state PTA organization, and some are independent groups labeled PTOs. There are also several booster clubs at the high school, for various extracurriculars and sports. Here is the contact info for each school’s primary volunteer group:

TAHOMA HIGH SCHOOL PTA

Member portal

Website

Facebook

MIDDLE SCHOOLS

Note that The Middle Schools of Tahoma PTA serves both schools.

Maple View Middle School PTA website

MVMS Facebook Group

Summit Trail Middle School PTA website

STMS Facebook Group

ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

Cedar River PTO website

CRES PTO Facebook group

Glacier Park PTSA website

GPES PTSA Facebook group

Lake Wilderness PTSA website

LWES PTSA Facebook group

Rock Creek PTO website

RCES PTO Facebook group

Shadow Lake PTA website

SLES PTA Facebook group

Tahoma Elementary PTO website

TES PTO Facebook group

OTHER GROUPS

Tahoma School District Special Education/Disabilities PTA Committee website

and

Facebook group

PATH (Parents Advocates for Tahoma’s Highly-Capable) website

and

Facebook group

 

If you want to volunteer in a Tahoma school, you will first need to receive volunteer clearance from the district. That can be done online at this site: https://tahomavolunteers.hrmplus.net/