Canyon Oaks is officially 20 years old
With balloons, dances and speeches, American Canyon’s Canyon Oaks Elementary School celebrated its 20th anniversary on March 20.
Principal Stephanie Vasquez emceed the event as students, teachers, parents and guests gathered in the shade of the central oak tree, canopies and newly installed shaded structures in the school’s Mighty Oak Courtyard, named after the school mascot.
With about 700 students enrolled in transition kindergarten through fifth grade, Canyon Oaks is Napa Valley Unified School District’s biggest elementary school.
Dignitaries at the celebration included American Canyon city council members, school district officials, including NVUSD District Superintendent Rosanna Mucetti, and trustee board president Lisa Chu, a former Canyon Oaks parent and Parent Teacher Organization volunteer.
“Canyon Oaks is a place where students thrive,” Chu told the crowd. “I saw my own children thrive here.”
Troy Knox, a former Canyon Oaks principal, noted the word “Thrive” was on the back of T-shirts produced for the 20th anniversary.
“One of the things that I truly love about my experience here at Canyon Oaks is that students thrive,” said Knox, who left Canyon Oaks in 2015 for McPherson Elementary School in Napa. He is now director of special education with the Sonoma Valley Unified School District.
Canyon Oaks’ first principal, Maren Rocca Hunt, recalled her five years at the school.
“It was my honor to be the first principal at Canyon Oaks Elementary School,” Rocca Hunt said. “With all sincerity, serving here for those five years were the most outstanding five years of my career in education.”
Rocca Hunt, who is now retired, presided over the school’s many firsts. She recalled the first day of school, when she was bit by a dog and went to Kaiser Permanente, missing the first after-school program. She was fine, Rocca Hunt said, but that added to the lore of the school’s founding.
She remembered when the school started its first PTO and its first arts festival, as well as its first fire drills and its first rainy days. There were 40 rain days that first year before December, she said. “So, we had lots of practice.”
The school was built on Silver Oak Trail, east of Highway 29 in the Vintage Ranch subdivision at a time when residential real estate sales prices were soaring in American Canyon.
Standard Pacific Homes, which built the Vintage Ranch subdivision, constructed the $15 million school, American Canyon Vice Mayor Mark Joseph recalled.
The school opened with more than 500 students, about 200 more than anticipated, according to news reports. The neighborhoods around Canyon Oaks continued to attract students as more houses were built.
Rocca Hunt said classrooms had to be reconfigured five times before Thanksgiving that first year to accommodate all the students. Some students and teachers moved to portable classrooms.
Within months, the district broke ground to build new classrooms on campus.
“It was pretty crazy, but it also brought us all together,” Rocca Hunt said.
Students learned not to pocket and take home red-legged frogs, which are endangered species and migrate through the campus between November and March.
The school mascot should have been the frog, Rocca Hunt said. Instead, it was the Mighty Oaks.
In the spring of 2005, before the school opened, 10 Donaldson Way and Napa Junction students who were expected to enter Canyon Oaks that fall, surveyed their peers and named the school. (Hogwarts was also considered.)
The students also chose its mascot and its green and gold colors to represent the changing leaves colors, Rocca Hunt said. “They wanted a symbol and a name for the school that was long-lasting, wise and represented the American Canyon community, past and present.”
Vasquez praised the school parents and volunteers, particularly Parent Teacher Organization president Jaymie Hall, who received a bouquet of flowers from her youngest son, Rayden,10, a fifth-grader at Canyon Oaks.
Hall and her husband, Rob, have had two other children at Canyon Oaks, plus Ryder, a seventh-grader at American Canyon Middle School and Royce, a senior at American Canyon High School.
Hall has volunteered for years, beginning in 2013 when her oldest son started school. She wanted to make a difference and be there for her children and the Canyon Oaks community, she said.
Other parents highlighted the school’s sense of community.
Secret Wright, the mother of two children at Canyon Oaks, watched her 11-year-old daughter and her classmates perform a salsa dance during the celebration. The school, like American Canyon, is a really close community, Wright said.
Rene Trejo has been a Canyon Oaks parent since 2010, when his oldest son, now a college student, entered the elementary school. His youngest child, Evelyn, 11, is a fifth-grader.
Like other parents, Trejo praised the teachers and the school. “When you come to Canyon Oaks, you don’t come to a school. You come to a family,” Trejo said.
The anniversary celebrations took part in a renovated campus. In 2025, The school’s central courtyard was transformed with new shade structures, landscaping and seating into an outdoor learning and gathering area, thanks to Measure A2, the $25 million bond measures voters approved in 2022. Measure A also covered the cost of replacing most of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning units.
