Happy First Friday of the 2021-2022 school year! We were so glad to welcome back our students this week. We have taken some time to ease our students into their classrooms and routines this year, and it is clear that our students are ready to learn! We would like to take the opportunity to update you on a few key items to start the year off:
New Staff:
Please join us in welcoming our new Tamarac Elementary faculty and staff members!
Kelly Onorato - Assistant Principal
Kristen Zakrzewski - 4th grade classroom teacher
Michele Wyanski - 3rd grade classroom teacher
Erika Farley - School Counselor
Anna Tokareva - English as a New Language (ENL) teacher
Angela Tomaro - Occupational Therapist
Amy Leonard - Speech-Language Pathologist
Jessica Marsh - Special Education
Health and Safety:
We would like to remind you that students are to wear masks while in school every day. Masks are required this school year for students and staff while inside the building. Additionally, if parents are on school grounds to pick up or drop off children, we request that you wear a mask also. Now that the school year has begun, parents and community members will not be allowed inside the school building during the day for the foreseeable future. Our goal is to keep all students and staff in our building for daily instruction. We are in this together, and we appreciate your cooperation!
Arrival:
Students arriving by bus and car will enter the school building at 8:45. Supervision will be provided outside the building beginning at 8:35 for students dropped off by parents/caregivers. Starting on Monday, we will have a new alignment for entering the building; this is to address students who get breakfast. Students in grades 2, 3, 4 and 5 can pick up breakfast as they enter the building and take it to their classroom - there is not sufficient room for these students to eat breakfast in the cafeteria (due to our COVID protocols). Once these students have picked up breakfast, students in grades pre-K, kindergarten and 1st grade will come to the cafeteria from their classes to get breakfast; 1st graders will return to their classroom to eat, while pre-K and kindergarten students will eat breakfast in the cafeteria. Our morning entrance line-up will look like this:
PK-1 will enter in the left-most door closest to the front playground.
Grades 2-5 students who do not eat school-provided breakfast will enter through the main entrance.
Grades 2-5 students, who eat school-provided breakfast, will enter through the cafeteria entrance closest to the back parking lot and pick up breakfast in the cafeteria. We will keep you updated on how this new process is working out for our students.
Dismissal:
We will begin dismissing students for aftercare and parent/caregiver pickup at 3:10. Like last year, students being picked up will be dismissed at the three separate exits in the front of the building.
Students with last names A-F will be dismissed through the cafeteria entrance closest to the back parking lot.
Students with last names G-O will be dismissed through the main entrance.
Students with last names P-Z will be dismissed at the left-most door closest to the front playground.
We will make every effort to have siblings with different last names exit from the same door if they are getting picked up by the same caregiver.
Once we have dismissed all pickup and aftercare students, we will begin dismissing bus riders by grade level. It is our goal to have our bus riders ready to roll by 3:25 pm each afternoon.
A reminder from the Lunch Room
Every student at Tamarac qualifies to receive a free breakfast & lunch daily this school year. Students unfortunately cannot just get milk or juice. Additionally, all students need to rung up through the register system when getting their free meal. The USDA rules for the free meal require that each student must get 3 food components (1 of which must be a fruit or vegetable) to qualify for the free meal. All ala carte items, like a single milk, must be paid for.
Thank you for helping us as we must follow all USDA rules for the free breakfast and lunch program.
Teacher Qualifications
We continually work to recruit and hire top-notch educators at Brunswick Central School District. Should questions or concerns arise, parents/guardians have the right to request and receive information about the professional qualifications of their child’s classroom teacher.
We had a great opening week with students. We expect many more great weeks ahead! We look forward to seeing our students back for the first full week of school on Monday!
Sincerely, Richard Pogue
Principal, Tamarac Elementary School