The Board of Education consists of nine members who serve rotating 5-year terms. Elections are held each May for board members and to vote on the School District budget. Current board members are:
Canandaigua Primary-Elementary School, Principal - Emily Bonadonna, Brian Amesbury
Middle school
Canandaigua Middle School, Principal - John Arthur
High school
Canandaigua Academy, Principal - Vernon Tenney
Performance
The American School Board Journal has named the District a "Magna Award" winner five times through 2006. The Academy’s library website was named a 2003 "International Best of the Web" site for large high schools. Students have access to each school's library from home via a 2003 NYSPRA "Award of Excellence" web site. The District supplies individual personal laptop computers, fully secured, to all students in grades 6-12, with plans for all students in Grades K-12 to have such units by 2019. The United States Department of Education awarded its highest honor, the Blue Ribbon School of Excellence Award, to Canandaigua schools in 1986 and 1996. In February 2002, the school earned the designation of "International Baccalaureate World School," offering the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. 17 graduates received the diploma in 2007. 31 are enrolled to receive the diploma in 2014. In November 2007, a first-grade class at Canandaigua Primary School won a national prize for a video they created that encourages girls to pursue technology careers. They were selected first from 85 schools in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In January 2014, the Middle School was recognized as a New York State School of Character and later was recognized as a National School of Character by the Character Education Partnership, a national agency based in Washington, DC.
2009 Suicide
On May 5, 2009, just after 11 a.m., a 17-year-old senior male student named Thomas Kane committed suicide while in a high school boys' bathroom. For security measures, the school entered lockdown in case the incident had connections to a larger shooting or some other incident. Responding police authorities determined that the gunshot wound to Thomas Kane was self-inflicted and an isolated incident. Students were evacuated to the middle school, and the high school was thoroughly searched and cleared. Police discovered 30 rounds of ammunition on Kane and in his locker, along with improvised incendiary weapons, or molotov cocktails. This suggests that a shooting spree may have been planned. However, no such action was carried out.
