Back to School Night at American Canyon Middle School
Students and parents share their hopes for the new school year
Thursday was Back-to-School night at American Canyon Middle School, a day after students returned to school on Wednesday, Aug 13.
Among the parents and students who attended Back-to-School night were Kelton Bethancourt and his son, Kai, 12.
Kai, who is entering the seventh grade, was looking forward to making new friends and learn “new things.” He would like to one day be either a football player or, if that does not work out, a doctor or a construction worker.
His father is certainly familiar with the school. He attended American Canyon Middle School heading to Vintage High School.
Kelton Bethancourt now looks forward to learning about the curriculum and opportunities for parents to be involved in his son’s school.
“More importantly,” Bethancourt added, “I’m looking forward to him having a good year.”
Tayila Smith and her daughter were also attended Back-to-School night. Smith came to see her daughter’s class and check out extra-curricular activities her daughter’s new school offers. She and Trickyie, 13, recently moved from Birmingham, Ala.
The school has been “very welcoming,” Trickyie said.
American Canyon students attending Napa Junction Magnet, Donaldson Way and Canyon Oak elementary schools and American Canyon High School also returned to school on Wednesday.
Some students and their parents shared with The American Canyon Current their take on the new school year as they strolled West American Canyon Road closed for Meet Me In the Street on West American Canyon.
A mom, Jackie Herrera, said the teachers at Napa Junction, which her children attend, are “strict but fun at the same time.”
“That’s true,” said son Eli, 7, a second grader, who is attending the school with his sister, Beatrice, 5, a kindergartner.
Carlos Figueroa, 14, an American Canyon High School freshman, said he wants to start a rap group at the high school. The first day of school was “kind of mid,” he said.
One of his friends, Joseph Soto-Castillo, 15, said he wants to figure out how to sign up for trade classes and learn how to use tools. He wants to become a mechanic, he said.
Eighth-grader Pridan Profitt, 13, an eighth grader at American Canyon Middle School, anticipates her class field trip at the end of the year. Her sister, Ruby Profitt, 12, a seventh-grader, hopes to help form a theater club.
Their sister, Realynn Profitt, 15, who attends American Canyon High School, said her first school day was “all right.”
Vice Mayor Mark Joseph was among the officials invited to attend Thursday’s Back-To-School night. Joseph, who also served as American Canyon city manager between 1997 and 2006, recalled negotiations with the Napa Valley Unified School District to have the middle school built in the late 1990s.
Joseph said the community wanted a middle school, which “had to have everything” because the community did not think that American Canyon would ever have its own high school, he added.
But once the middle school opened, the public sought to build a high school, said Joseph, who was elected to the city council in 2010.
For years, middle and high school students from American Canyon were bused to Napa daily. American Canyon Middle School opened in 1998 and American Canyon High School, in 2010.
