We strive to be a school where everyone feels welcome. There are many things we do to accomplish this, but we make sure students feel it the first day they arrive. Each new student is greeted by our Welcome Wagon—a hand-selected group of upper grade students who will show them around campus and help them feel excited about being here. Once the bell rings, new students will find their classroom teacher greeting them and maybe (just maybe) playing music and dancing to help them start the day off right. Once they walk inside their class, they will take part in morning classroom meetings and help their peers build a positive classroom culture of caring and kindness.

But we don’t just stop there! Stop by our office in the morning and you might see students receiving a free birthday pencil just to help them feel noticed on their special day. Or you might hear a child reciting the flag salute as we recognize them as the student of the day. If you come in the afternoon, you might catch a guest teacher receiving a snack as a “thank you” for being at Mesa or a child discreetly receiving needed clothing, supplies, or food. And no matter when you stop by, you will always see colorful decorations in the front office, hear about special student activities, and be greeted by our friendly front office staff. We want you to always feel welcome here too, just like our students and staff!

We also want to provide an engaging academic experience at our school—one that truly encourages students to learn at higher levels. We don’t idly provide rote learning here! We give students writing and math challenges that build fluency. We provide activities geared toward students' interests and choice. We “gamify” our learning to make lessons more exciting, collaborative, and fun. Our focus is on cooperative learning with STEM activities, EduProtocols, close reading, and kinesthetic learning activities. We use technology and imagination to create interactive lessons that excite students and encourage learning independence.

Outside of the classroom, we engage students through yearly field trips for all grade levels, a weekly band program for students in grades 4–6, intramural sports activities including the flag football superbowl and 6th graded and staff kickball. We also have a vast array of student incentive programs, including Student of the Day, Student of the Month, Marvelous Mustangs, positive referrals, horseshoes for prizes and books, assemblies, and medals. We don’t want students to just come to school, we want them to want to be here and be a Mesa Mustang.

Finally, we want school to be fun. If students enjoy coming to school, they will attend more often and want to improve their academic performance. We provide multiple ways for students to have fun at school, but to start, we have our school wide positive behavior incentive system. As students earn horseshoes and blue slips, they receive increasingly fun activities including P.E. with the principles, food treats, board game competitions, art activities, and even time in our Makerspace—a unique collaborative space for designing, building, and creating all sorts of different things through open-ended exploration and play.

Throughout the year, students can have fun with seasonal activities, such as finding Ellie, our Elf on the Shelf, walking in the Halloween parade, playing games in our Fall Festival, or taking part in our end-of-the-year Field Day full of fun outdoor activities. Students are also given opportunities throughout the year to play organized sports such as field hockey, flag football, and sack racing.

We also have a large variety of after-school activities to provide a little extra fun after the bell rings. These include choir, iExpo, basketball, cheerleading, and esports teams. All of which are led by our generous staff who just want to make sure no one misses out. Helping us make sure Mesa Grande stays fun, our parent group, the PTSC, often steps up to fill in the gaps by providing field trips, assemblies, snow cone days, and other student-centered activities as well.

Overall, we provide a lot of opportunities for students to enjoy because we want them to look back and remember their elementary experience as a fun and enjoyable one.