Canyons School District

Canyons School District is a Salt Lake County school district in Utah, United States, which serves the communities of Alta, Cottonwood Heights, Draper, Midvale and Sandy. Residents of those communities voted to create the district in 2007, making Canyons District the first school district to be formed in the state in almost a century. Canyons has approximately 33,000 students in 44 schools. There are 29 elementary schools, eight middle schools, five high schools, and four special programs schools, including one technical school, a special education school and a high school for adults in prison. The district covers 192 square miles and employs 6,000 people.

The district officially started operating on July 1, 2009, with students attending Canyons schools for the first time that fall.

Canyons District was created after residents in the communities of Alta, Cottonwood Heights, Draper, Midvale and Sandy voted in 2007 to leave the Jordan School District, which was the largest district in the state at the time. Dr. David Doty, a former high school Spanish teacher, and Assistant Commissioner and Director of Policy Studies for the Utah System of Higher Education, was chosen by the new board of education to be the district's first superintendent.

On June 30, 2013, Doty resigned his position to join a Utah-based education consulting firm. He was replaced July 1, 2014, by Dr. James Briscoe, a veteran educator with 12 years of experience as a superintendent of schools in Illinois. Briscoe, who, in his tenure has also filled the roles of high school principal, assistant principal and math and social studies teacher, was chosen at the conclusion of an exhaustive national search, which included three months of community input meetings. Dr. Ginger Rhode, who served as Canyons' Deputy Superintendent for Student Achievement and the Chief Academic Officer since November 2008, acted as interim superintendent from July 1, 2013, to July 1, 2014, when she retired.

Early on in the district's formation, the board of education, superintendent, administrators and teachers established a goal to help Canyons' students become college- and career-ready. To that end, the district embarked on an aggressive plan to remodel aging schools or build where necessary, adapting innovative curriculum and reconfiguring grades in elementary, middle and high school.

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