Cedar Canyon Elementary School

Northwest Allen County Schools, 15011 Coldwater Road, Fort Wayne; prekindergarten through fifth grade; the Falcons; opened in 2006 under its first principal, and home to the district's special education preschool

The Opening: Cedar Canyon was opened by the man who would later run a neighboring district's schools. Dr. Phil Downs, afterward superintendent of Southwest Allen County Schools, "opened Cedar Canyon Elementary in 2006 as its first Principal," in the words of his own biography, a sentence a Trine University news release repeated in April 2021 when it carried the same account; he served in the chair from 2006 to 2010. Against those two named accounts stands one unanchored figure: a commercial school directory dates the opening to 2005, the year the master inventory of this history carried as a lead. No named source consulted places classes in the building in 2005, and the federal enrollment series begins with the 2006 to 2007 school year, at four hundred thirty seven students. This entry follows 2006, prints the directory's 2005 beside it as the unreconciled lead it is, and leaves the settling of the year to any district paper that surfaces.

The Principals: The school has had three principals in twenty years, and the record names them in order. Downs opened it. Kim Lochmueller followed, and her eight years in the chair ended in June 2018, when KPC News reported her stepping down to stay in the district as an assistant director of special education; she had begun as a teacher at Huntertown Elementary in 1997, and she has since surfaced as principal of Aspen Meadow Elementary, the district's newest school, in the district's current directory. Courtney Bailey was in the chair by December 2020 and signs the school's newsletter, The Falcon Flyer, as principal in September 2023 and March 2024; the district's directory still pairs her with Cedar Canyon in 2026, and the same directory's cabinet listing carries her as the district's Executive Director of Student Services, a double duty this history has met before in the district, at Arcola. Commercial listings name a "Courtney Veith" as the school's head; no district or school source consulted carries that name, and it is not carried here.

The School's Charge: Cedar Canyon teaches the district's youngest children as well as its elementary grades. The school houses Northwest Allen County's special education preschool, two all access preschool classrooms, a charge KPC News recorded in its account of Lochmueller's tenure in June 2018. The prekindergarten in the school's grade span is that program: children with special needs beginning school at three and four years old, in classrooms built to be reached by every child in them, inside a general elementary building on Coldwater Road.

The Federal Record: In 2025 the National Center for Education Statistics counts five hundred eight students at Cedar Canyon, taught by thirty four teachers at fifteen students to a teacher. Minority students were seventeen percent of the school, Asian students the largest share at six percent. Its testing stands in the top ten percent of Indiana schools, one hundred thirty sixth of one thousand seven hundred forty three, with math proficiency of seventy percent in the top ten percent statewide and reading proficiency of fifty seven percent in the top twenty. Its attendance zone is computed at about fifteen point five square miles over the northeast of Fort Wayne. The school's own arc runs through the counts: four hundred thirty seven students in its first federal year, five hundred twenty two by 2009, then three hundred ninety four in 2010, the first school year of Eel River Elementary's operation across the district, a step printed here as the sequence it is, with no cause claimed for it. A second climb carried the school to six hundred sixteen students in 2021 before a decline of seventeen percent over five years brought it to the present five hundred eight. In its first falls the state's nutrition program counted five hundred ninety seven children at the Cedar Canyon site in October 2007 and four hundred fifty three in October 2009, a new school already feeding a full building.

Today: The Falcons remain the school's name for itself, and its newsletter still flies under it: The Falcon Flyer opens its year with "Welcome Back Falcons!" and runs its celebrations as Falcon Frenzies. Courtney Bailey's principalship, last signed in the school's own pages in March 2024 and still paired with the school in the district's directory, stands as the current record states it, her district student services directorship printed beside it rather than resolved away. Twenty years after a superintendent in the making opened its doors, Cedar Canyon sits in the district's established middle: a top ten percent testing record, a preschool charge no other district elementary carries, and an opening year that still waits on a district paper to close the one year gap between the directories and the man who was there.

Sources:

1. Dr. Phil Downs, biography, drphildowns.com; and Trine University, news release, April 22, 2021: Downs "opened Cedar Canyon Elementary in 2006 as its first Principal," serving 2006 to 2010.
2. KPC News, June 20, 2018: Kim Lochmueller's eight years as principal and her June 2018 step down to an assistant directorship of special education; her teaching start at Huntertown Elementary in 1997; the two all access special education preschool classrooms at Cedar Canyon.
3. Summit City Observer, December 2020: Courtney Bailey in the principal's chair; and The Falcon Flyer, the school's newsletter, September 2023 and March 2024: the Falcons, "Welcome Back Falcons!," the Falcon Frenzy, and the issues signed by Principal Courtney Bailey.
4. Northwest Allen County Schools, About Us directory, read November 11, 2026: Cedar Canyon paired with Courtney Bailey and phone 260-637-6101, and the cabinet listing of Courtney Bailey as Executive Director of Student Services; Aspen Meadow paired with Kim Lochmueller.
5. National Center for Education Statistics, Cedar Canyon Elementary School (school ID 180825002166), as republished by Public School Review: 508 students in 2025 and 34 teachers; minority enrollment 17 percent; overall rank 136th of 1,743 Indiana schools; math proficiency 70 percent and reading 57 percent; the series from 437 students in 2007 through 522 in 2009, 394 in 2010, 616 in 2021 and 508 in 2025; the attendance zone of about 15.5 square miles.
6. Indiana Department of Education, nutrition eligibility listings, October 2007 and October 2009: the Cedar Canyon site with 597 and 453 children eligible; and schooldistricts.us, as carried in this history's master inventory: the opening year 2005, recorded here as an aggregator lead standing against the documented 2006.