Student Arrival and Student Dismissal: Please use CAR LINE, BUS TRANSPORTATION, OR WALK/BIKE. As we request each school year, please use the car line with the ORANGE last name sign visible, our bus transportation, or walk/bike ride to school with your children, and please avoid parking in our parking lot or parking a short distance away on our neighboring streets to drop-off or pick up your children. Parking on the neighboring streets often leads to our student walkers having obstructed views to cross streets and to walk in the middle of the streets for quite a distance. Thank you for always keeping our students' safety as our community's highest priority at student arrival and dismissal times, the busiest times of the school day!
2025-2026 Student School Pictures. Even if you are not planning to purchase your child's school picture, we would like to have all students photographed to be included in our yearbook! A yearbook is included in any picture package or if you are not interested in ordering a school photo, you can order only a yearbook. Online order information is linked here: https://mortensen.
Our school day begins promptly at 8:50 AM. We have outside supervision on the playground beginning at 8:30 AM and the students will come into the building at 8:42 AM to prepare for the day. Student arrival into the school after 8:50 AM results in your child(ren) being marked tardy. On time student arrival to school is important. Additionally, consistent plans for student arrival and dismissal are important. No matter if your child(ren) will be riding the bus, walking/riding bikes, or family drop-off/pick-up, we encourage you to start on the first day of school with a consistent plan. It is extremely helpful to your child to always know the consistent plan for how they are getting to school and especially how they are getting home from school each day.
Detailed information on our school day student arrival and dismissal. Please see this link for all the information.
Student Arrival: Families who drop their child(ren) off will use the north main parking lot from 8:30 - 8:42 AM. Please enter the parking lot and proceed slowly in the single lane (marked by cones) adjacent to the sidewalk. Please pull forward as far as you can (the fenced-in corral is noted with a purple star to drop off your child(ren). Parent drivers, please remain in your car as you drop off your child(ren) as that lane is considered an active drop-off lane only. Children should exit ON THE CURBSIDE ONLY! A CHANGE FOR 2025-2026! In order to enhance our safety procedures for student safety during our morning car drop-off, all cars will remain in the single lane until you exit the parking lot at the NE exit. We appreciate your understanding that you may be waiting in the single lane as others in front of you complete the process of dropping off their children.
Students in Grades 1-5 will exit your vehicle on the sidewalk side and walk on the sidewalk to the playground. There will be many staff members in yellow safety vests greeting your Tonawanda student as they exit cars.
Students in Grades 4K and 5K will exit your vehicle on the sidewalk side and will enter the building through Tonawanda’s main entrance. They will proceed through the main hallway and exit the south doors to join their classmates in the 4K/5K line up areas. For the first few weeks of school, our 4K/5K teachers and staff will be highly visible for our students upon arrival and will establish this routine with our youngest students.
As students arrive on these first four days of school, our classroom teachers and many additional staff members will be outside to greet the children with grade level signs (5K for 5 year-old kindergarten, 1 for first grade, 2 for second grade, etc.) and their teachers will guide the students to their line-up entrance areas.
Student Dismissal: The Tonawanda Student Dismissal Options are:
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Bus Rider (student rides the bus)
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Car Pickup (picked up by car)
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Map Meetup (walkers and bikers who are met by an adult who is on foot or bike) A CHANGE for 2025-2026!! Families will wait on the US Map on our playground, however our students will wait in Mrs. Anderson's classroom. Her classroom has a perfect view of the US Map. When your child sees you at the Map, they will be dismissed from Mrs. Anderson's classroom. Thank you!
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Walker/Biker (students who leave independently from school grounds)
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YBase After-School Care (students who stay at Tonawanda for YBase child-care)
Car Pickup Instructions: We are asking any family that utilizes a vehicle to pick up their child to use the car pickup. For our students’ safety, please do not park on neighboring streets or in our parking lot and instead use the car line pick-up process. Please enter our north parking lot from the west as there is a no-left turn sign into our parking lot at the end of the school day. Upon entering the parking lot, please create two car lines until the school's main entrance awning where cars will merge to form a single lane. Referencing the map above, a staff member will call your child’s name while your child waits in the corral (purple star). Students will enter vehicles at the cones and flags (orange smiley faces on map). Once your child is safely loaded into your vehicle, we will utilize a rollercoaster type dismissal where all 6 cars will leave consecutively.
Please follow the traffic pattern and resist stopping before your called number - this causes our line to slow down! Please help our line by loading quickly into your car. Please stay in your vehicle. If you need more time to get your child situated, please pull forward into the “Buckle Zone.” Please, kindly, do not drive around other cars and be patient with delays as our families, students and staff use our dismissal system.
Map Meetup: Families and caregivers who walk or bike to Tonawanda at dismissal to meet their student(s) are asked to walk on a Tonawanda sidewalk to the US MAP on the Tonawanda Playground (see aerial map) to meet their child(ren). We ask that you utilize sidewalks around Tonawanda and not walk through the parking lot during our Car Pickup process to keep everyone safe.
A CHANGE for 2025-2026!! Families will wait on the US Map on our playground, however our students will wait in Mrs. Anderson's classroom. Her classroom has a perfect view of the US Map. When your child sees you at the Map, they will be dismissed from Mrs. Anderson's classroom. Thank you!
NEW! A message from our Interim Associate Principal, Mrs. Angie Slonac: Hello Tonawanda Families! My name is Angie Slonac and I am thrilled and honored to be the Interim Associate Principal while Mrs. Gray is on maternity leave. I have been a part of the Elmbrook School District since 2013. I started as a 4th and 5th grade teacher at Swanson Elementary and moved to Brookfield Elementary to be the Teaching and Learning Specialist in Literacy in 2019. I am currently working on my Administrative and Curriculum Director's License through Carroll University. In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my family, my husband Jim and my two kiddos Harper (8) and Landon (6), being active, and reading. I am looking forward to getting to know you and your students this semester!
NEW for 2025-2026 Bus Information: Go-Riteway is the bus company that serves our Elmbrook School District. Our transportation provider, GoRiteway, has transitioned to a new software platform (Transfinder) that will result in two significant changes when managing your student’s bus ride to and from school:
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All bus route schedule information must now be accessed through the Infinite Campus Portal - Transportation Tab or the new Stopfinder App. Families will no longer receive any emails with route information. As of Thursday, August 21, route information is available in the portal for students that did not opt out of transportation.
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NEW APP - the Here Comes the Bus App has been replaced with a new App called Stopfinder. Be sure to activate your account and get the app! The Stopfinder app allows parents and students to confirm their daily bus route schedule, track their bus, message GoRiteway staff, and receive notice of arrivals or real-time delays or changes. Once logged in, a person has the ability to invite others to get the app, such as grandparents or other caregivers.
Please login to Infinite Campus and review your student’s bus schedule and stop information closely, as bus stops often change from year to year based on student ridership, age of students, and the District’s need to route students safely and efficiently. Bus stop location decisions are determined by the District and GoRiteway based on District policy guidelines and GoRiteway’s safety practices.
If you have changes to your student’s bus schedule, often due to child care, you can request a schedule change using this form. Additionally, more information about Elmbrook’s Transportation service can be found on our website. If you have questions, please connect directly with Go Riteway at 414-249-5048.
Due to large ridership on our buses, only routed students will be allowed on the buses again this school year. We cannot have unrouted students ride home with other students on their buses for playdates. Only routed and assigned bus riders may be on our buses. Thank you for your understanding!
NEW! PTO Student Directory! Sign up your family in the student directory using this link. The school is unable to provide information to other families, so this is your best route to be in the know with our PTO Room Parents, connect with Tonawanda families, arrange playdates, send invitations to school friends, etc. Please sign up by September 26, 2025 to be included.
NEW! VOLUNTEERS NEEDED for the PTO Back to School Bash! Please sign up to help: https://www.
NEW! Scholastic Book Fair on Friday, September 12 from 5:30 - 7:00 PM in our Tonawanda gym. All the information is linked here. For all the details, and to create an eWallet, visit our school’s Book Fair homepage: https://www.
NEW! The September PTO Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 11 at 6:00 PM in our Tonawanda Library. Your participation in the PTO is a great way to meet families in our school community! A Google Meet link is included if you cannot attend in-person. Hope to see you there!
K–8 Universal Screener Update At Elmbrook, we use universal screeners to give us a quick, consistent check-in on how students are doing in reading and math. These assessments help us see which students are meeting or exceeding grade-level expectations and which students may need extra support. Starting in the 2025–26 school year, in lieu of NWEA MAP, Elmbrook will use the following universal screeners: aimswebPLUS for grades K-8 literacy and 2-8 math and Fastbridge for grades K-1 math. Why we’re making a change for 2025–26: Our previous screener, NWEA MAP, is changing in ways that make it less adaptive and harder to track student progress over time. Also, state law (ACT 20) now requires all K–3 students to use AimswebPLUS for literacy screening. Having a consistent assessment across multiple grades allows our staff to better track student performance over time. Finally, our new screeners will give us the same valuable insights into student learning, but in a faster, more efficient way—allowing us to spend more time on what matters most: teaching our students. Please expect a student assessment summary report to be shared at the beginning of October.
Background Check Process for Volunteers! We love our family/parent/grandparent volunteers! In hopes that we will be able to welcome you all back in to help out this upcoming school year, we wanted to share the process for becoming a volunteer in our schools. Please see https://www.
Tonawanda PTO Volunteer Sign-Up: Looking to get involved? The PTO Executive Committee will begin contacting those who are currently signed up for committee work to support the ’25-’26 Tonawanda PTO. If you have some extra time and are looking to meet other Tonawanda families we have lots of work to be done. Let’s give our staff and school all the support they deserve!! Join Us! Sign up: Tonawanda PTO Committee Sign-up ('25-'26 School Year)Email tonawandapto@gmail.
NEW! Attention 4th and 5th Grade Students! Sign-Up for Chorus! https://docs.google.