First Period classes begin at 7:30 AM. Students must be in their 1st Period class by 7:30 AM in order to be considered on time to school. For car riders, a few minutes can really make a difference when it comes to arrival time at school. Remember that the doors open at 7:10 am, and from 7:10 to 7:20 there is barely ever a line to drop off students. However, at 7:20 am, the line begins to back up because that’s when the majority of car riders arrive. Here are a few pieces of advice for car riders and their parent(s)/guardian(s):

• Try to get to school before 7:20 am. Remember that if you are not in your 1st Period class by 7:30 am, you will be marked late.
• Entering the school parking lot from the Kelly Road side (making a right into the school) makes for easier access.
• Please use turn-signals when entering and exiting the school parking lot.
• Be patient and alternate taking turns with opposing traffic.
• Remember that if you take the bus to school, you will never be marked late to school.

Please be mindful that the the speed limit in our parking lot and in front of our school at arrival and dismissal times is 15 mph. Please remember that many Tamanend students walk to school.

Monday, January 23

• No contests

Tuesday, January 24

• 7th Grade Boys Basketball vs. Unami (Home; 3:15)
• Wrestling @ FDR (Away; 3:15); bus leaves at 1:15

Wednesday, January 25

• 8th Grade Boys Basketball vs. Klinger (Home; 3:15)

Thursday, January 26

• 7th Grade Boys Basketball @ Lenape (Away; 3:15)
• Wrestling @ Maple Point (Away; 3:15); bus leaves at 1:15

Friday, January 27

• Early Dismissal: No contests

The Central Bucks School District is creating an Athletic Strategic Plan to help define goals and objectives for our athletic programs. As part of that process, gathering feedback from stakeholders involved with these programs is critical. We encourage student athletes and parents of student athletes ask to please take a few moments to complete a survey at https://www.cbsd.org/athletic_planning. This survey should take no more than ten minutes to complete and will remain open until 11:59 p.m. on Friday, January 13, 2023. Results from this survey will inform the work of the Central Bucks School District Athletic Strategic Plan Steering Committee. We look forward to developing a plan that will provide greater clarity of purpose to student athletes, coaches, staff, parents, and the Central Bucks community. When participating in this survey, please consider your personal experience when answering each question. If you find that a question does not apply to you, please choose "N/A." Your feedback is important and survey results will inform the committee's work. The survey will remain open until Friday, January 13.

PLEASE NOTE: There is a session for Parents/Guardians of Special Education Students that begins at 6:30 PM in the Library and a session for Parents/Guardians of PEN Students that begins at 6:30 in the Cafeteria.

Program Planning for the 2023-2024 school year is underway. Program Planning is the process by which students, parents, teachers, and school counselors collaborate to create each student's class schedule for the subsequent school year. The Central Bucks Program of Studies, which explains the program planning process and describes all courses, can be found on the CBSD website as per the dates listed below. Please find a list of important dates below related to program planning:

• Tuesday, January 3--Program Planning assembly for current 9th Graders during Tiger's i (snow date is January 4)
• Thursday, January 5--CB South Curriculum Fair for current 9th Graders at CB South at 6:30 PM
  
• Thursday, January 19 through Sunday, February 5--Current 9th Grade students enter course requests in Portal
  
• Monday, January 30--Program Planning assembly for current 8th Graders during Tiger's i (snow date is February 1)
• Tuesday, January 31--Program Planning assembly for current 7th Graders during Tiger's i (snow date is February 2)
  
• Wednesday, February 1--Administrators and counselors guide current 8th Graders through choosing electives in Portal during Resource (snow date is February 2)
  
• Friday, February 10--Course verifications for current 7th Graders posted on Parent Portal
• Thursday, February 16--Electronic confirmation of course verifications for current 7th Graders due in Parent Portal
• Thursday, February 22--Course verifications for current 8th Graders posted on Parent Portal
• Tuesday, February 28--Electronic confirmation of course verifications for current 8th Graders due in Parent Portal
• Friday, March 17--Course verifications for current 9th Graders posted on Parent Portal
• Wednesday, March 29--Electronic confirmation of course verifications for current 9th Graders due in Parent Portal

If you are a Tamanend parent/guardian interested in volunteering at Tamanend this year, please click on link below to our Sign Up Genius--https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30E0849AFA62CA4FB6-parent Our first volunteer opportunity will start next week. Please review the volunteer requirements below before signing up. Thank you for your support!

• The CB South Curriculum Fair for next year's 10th Graders was held on Thursday, January 5th. CB South's Program Planning & Curriculum page contains videos from across their various departments and can help give a sense of their offerings. Paramount to the high school transition are relationships and connectedness. Tamanend and CB South counselors will continue to plan and program for relationship-building opportunities as your child transitions to high school, including the forthcoming program planning assembly with high school and middle school counselors, curriculum fair, Q&A with high school counselors during the Intervention and Enrichment time, and welcome days at the high schools. We will share more information about these exciting events soon. Please reach out to your child’s counselor for additional assistance and information as we work together to support this transition.
• MBIT’s Open House was held on Thursday, December 1st at 6:00. Please visit their website (www.mbit.org) to see all of the amazing programs that MBIT has to offer.
• Please see below for a Strengthening Families program beginning on January 19th. Program outcomes can be seen on the website, here. Click here to see a short video clip about the program. Click here to sign up to participate in the Strengthening Families Program 10-14 at Bensalem High School.

Dear Parents/Guardians,

CBSD is currently accepting applications for Free & Reduced Lunch. Students who qualify for the Free and Reduced School Meals Program may also qualify for a variety of needs-based assistance based on their program eligibility. Federal law requires the family’s consent before Central Bucks School District can use or share eligibility status for purposes other than the provision of free or reduced lunch. This information will only be shared if you consent to help provide needs-based assistance to your student that may be beneficial to your family. Your decision to share or not share this information will not in any way affect your eligibility status for the Free and Reduced School Meals Program; it is completely optional.

If your student(s) qualifies for the Free and Reduced School Meals Program, you will receive a notification of a document that needs your attention in the Parent Portal. The Free/Reduced Lunch Information Sharing Consent Form requests permission to use the eligibility status to qualify for various needs-based assistance and programming. You may consent for all areas listed below, decline consent to all areas, or provide partial consent. See the link below for instructions to complete this consent form.

Free/Reduced Lunch Information Sharing Consent Form Instructions

Best wishes for a wonderful start to the school year.

If parents/guardians decide to drive students to school, please plan enough travel time to allow for safety and congestion on Stuckert Road and in our school parking lot. The speed limit in our lot is 15 mph.

Below is a map of how the student drop-off will work in our parking lot. Drop off should only happen along the sidewalk in the front parking lot up to the Main Entrance, as indicated by the yellow highlighted area on the map. For your safety and the safety of our students, please follow these directions and do not drop your student off on Stuckert Road, the Visitor's Parking area, or in the middle of the Main Parking Area.

When dropping off your child, please remember that you should MAKE A RIGHT-HAND TURN INTO/OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. Please stay to the right of the parking lot, along the sidewalk, all the way up to the Stop Sign across from the Tennis Courts. Pull up as far as you can when the cars in front of you clear, and let your child out on the sidewalk. PLEASE STAY IN A SINGLE-FILE LINE WHILE IN THE PARKING LOT.

When picking up your child, please remember that YOU SHOULD ONLY MAKE A RIGHT-HAND TURN INTO THE PARKING LOT. The line of traffic will extend back toward the baseball field (Kelly Rd.). Please stay in the line of traffic and continue moving up as the car(s) in front of you move up. If we follow this procedure, all cars we be gone by 2:40.

When the weather is poor (heavy rain, low temperatures, etc.), more and more parents/guardians choose to drive their children to school. A reminder that students are expected to be in their 1st Period classes by 7:30 AM. If a child is late to school because of CBSD transportation, their tardiness will be excused. If a student is late to school because of car trouble, over-sleeping, or they are in the car drop-off line, their tardiness is unexcused. Typically, there are few cars in the drop off line from when the doors open at 7:10 until about 7:20. After 7:20, the line begins to get very long.

If you drive your child to school and the weather is poor, please consider leaving home earlier so that your child arrives to class on time.

Thanks for your assistance!

Last year, CB middle schools began running a weekly intervention and enrichment period. The purpose of this period is to provide time, space, and support for students to receive help from a teacher, to participate in enrichment activities, and to prepare for upcoming assessments and projects. At Tamanend, we called this time Tiger's i. For the 2022-2023 school year, our middle schools will be expanding this from a weekly program to a daily program. Students' Tiger's i groups will meet during the I & E block on their schedule.

Any Central Bucks family who may need a little extra food assistance is welcome to join on us at Barclay Elementary School. Our 2022-23 drive-up food distribution runs from 4:30 to 5:30 PM on the second and fourth Thursday of the month. We generally have free dry goods, fresh produce, milk, eggs, and bread, and often have some frozen meat and poultry. At each event we pass out an average of 10,000 pounds of food. No advanced sign-up is necessary. We kindly ask that you do not line up before 4:30 so as not to interfere with our student dismissal, and that you do not block our neighbors’ driveways. If you do line up during our student dismissal, you will be kindly asked to leave. Also, do not pull forward until you are certain that you have enough room and will not block someone’s driveway. Our neighbors are very understanding and supportive of our work, but also need to come and go during our events.

¡Bienvenidos a Tamanend! Yo soy Brian Caughie, Director de Tamanend Middle School. Soy hispanohablante. Pasé mucho de mi vida en España. Estoy aquí para apoyarles a todos los estudiantes y familias en Tamanend. Favor de llamarme or escribirme (en inglés o en español) si Ud. tiene cualquier duda o pregunta.

Correo electrónico: bcaughie@cbsd.org

Oficina: (267) 893-2900

Tamanend students make a difference in our community. Share your story about the accomplishments and good work of a Tamanend student with Dr. Caughie at bcaughie@cbsd.org so that he may highlight this good news in an upcoming edition of Tamanend Connections.