Activities and Field Trips

PAWS (Parents and Working Staff)

PAWS Meeting:

Every 2nd Tuesday at 3:30

Mesa Library

Mission Statement:

Bringing parents and staff together, building relationships that support our school and the children within. All parents, teachers, and staff are automatically members of our PAWS committee. We work together to enhance our children's academics and educational enviroment by providing the necessary resources that help stimulate the growth of our children and maintain the highest advantages in education. 

We value your input and participation.  Please consider joining our PAWS meeting. 

mesa watch d.o.g. dads

Mesa is pleased to host a strong Watch DOG Dads program.  We have had almost 100 dads, grandfathers, brothers, and other role models participate in this program and we are continuing to grow!  Our volunteer DADS spend time in classrooms, lunchrooms, and on the playground supporting their children and all our students.  Our DADS make a difference.  

What is Watch D.o.g. dads?

"WATCH D.O.G.S. is one of the nation’s largest and most respected school-based, family, and community engagement, organizations in the country.

In 1998, the very first WATCH D.O.G.S. program launched at Gene George Elementary in Springdale, AR. Today, more than 6,450 schools across the country have launched a WATCH D.O.G.S. program of their own.

Each school year hundreds of thousands of fathers and father-figures make a positive impact on millions of children by volunteering millions of hours in their local schools through this amazing one-of-a-kind program."

Click here for Dads of Great Students website

Please join us!  To learn more or to sign up, please contact Robert Laymon. 

MONTEZUMA SCHOOL TO FARM PROJECT

The school garden classrooms provide accessible living laboratories where diet/nutrition, active lifestyle, water and soil conservation, and core curriculum lessons intersect. Whether it’s writing a poem about a plant’s life cycle, actively learning the science behind seed germination studying the history of drought in the Southwest, cooking with fresh vegetables, or translating seed packet instructions into Spanish or Navajo, the garden is easily woven into every subject. Classes are an integral part of the school day so that learning in the school garden coincides with important science and math core lessons. Students integrate their learning in a meaningful way because they are an active participant in their learning experiences.

Garden classes are offered seasonally throughout the year at Mesa and utilize our amazing outdoor garden and learning space.  School to Farm also offers limited summer garden camp opportunities.

Mesa SCHOOL GARDEN

Located between the playground and open space, Mesa's school garden features raised beds, an outdoor learning space, and a wood-fired pizza oven. 

In summer 2016, Mesa's Outdoor Learning Lab was a hive of activity. Members of FarmCorps, a program of Southwest Conservation Corps, and AmeriCorps NCCC worked alongside community volunteers and MSTFP staff to install benches and work surfaces, raised beds, washing stations, compost bins, a cold frame, shed, adobe oven, herb spiral, and more. They also gave the existing pavilion a fresh new look in anticipation for MSTFP classes to begin in the fall.

Mesa students visit the garden for classes focusing on science, math, nutrition, history, art, problem solving, and team building. The garden programs and curriculum urge students to draw connections between their individual actions and the world around them by offering opportunities to become active community citizens while learning in an outdoor setting.  

Students regularly visit the garden during recess and after-school clubs have taken advantage of the space as well. An orchard was installed in October 2016 with assistance and guidance from the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project. This winter students will help plan spring planting and will help put together educational garden “kits” that visitors will be able to use on their own. As the Mesa community gets better acquainted with the garden, expect to see more projects and installations; plans of a native plant walk and a tea garden are in the works! 

MSTFP partnered with Southwest Conservation Corps (SCC) to offer a Farm Corps program in June 2016, which trained, educated and coached young people from southwest Colorado.  MSTFP and SCC offered project specific training to youth crew members in the skills required to build necessary elements of a school garden facility in the arid Southwest. During the course of the 4 week program, participants installed raised beds with drip irrigation systems, constructed a 8'x12' garden shed, installed a cold frame, built a compost system, refurbished an existing School Garden Shade Ramada, added benches and tabletop surfaces into the Ramada, and constructed an adobe oven.