FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TALLMADGE, OH (February 11, 2020) – Tallmadge City Schools is set to open its new Tallmadge Elementary School on Monday, March 30, 2020. Tallmadge Elementary will consolidate Dunbar Primary and Munroe Elementary into one building, bringing together kindergarten through fifth-grade. With the opening of the new school, new bus routes and pick-up/drop-off times for kindergarten through fifth-grade students have been established.
“We think families will be happy with the new bus schedules because the routes are significantly shorter,” said Courtney Davis, K-5 principal at Tallmadge Elementary. “We had students who were on the bus for 45 minutes, and now they will only be on the bus for 15-20 minutes or even shorter. This is a significant improvement. The length of bus rides has been the biggest complaint we’ve received in the past, and the new building and routes will solve this issue for parents. We encourage all students and their families to love the bus and take advantage of the bus services offered by Tallmadge City Schools.”
NEW & EFFICIENT BUS ROUTES
Tallmadge City Schools provides busing to all students who live in the district. All Tallmadge Elementary students have been assigned to a new bus route and are encouraged to take advantage of the transportation provided to them. In preparation for the opening of the new school, letters with each student’s new bus route and pick-up/drop-off times were sent to students’ homes in early February.
There will be 26 buses transporting children to and from the new elementary building. Tallmadge Elementary School ran multiple mock bus trials to ensure efficiency and logistics of the new bus plan for the school. Buses will drop-off and pick-up students from the side of the new elementary building. Parents dropping off and picking up students will do so from the front of the building with the assistance of the commonly used Car Rider app.
NEW ASSIGNED BUS SEATING
Third-grade through fifth-grade students will be assigned seats in the rear of the bus while younger students (kindergarten through second-graders) will ride in the front of the bus. The current kindergarten bus rider policy will remain in place. It states that drivers need to make visual contact with an adult when dropping off a kindergarten student, even if the student is riding with an older sibling.
NEW CAR RIDER PROCESS
Parents who choose to drop off and pick up their students will need to have a Car Rider tag. They will need to display this tag on their rearview mirror. The tag number provided to parents will also correspond to a number given to the child(ren) associated with the parent and their car.