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Mesa Public Schools

school district in Arizona, United States

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ6821077 ↗
Source-derived summary

Mesa Public Schools (incorporated as Mesa Unified School District #44) is the largest public school district in the U.S. state of Arizona, headquartered in Mesa. It has approximately 56,000 students. The district has, in addition to regular programs, Montessori, International Baccalaureate, dual-language immersion, honors, and Advanced Placement courses.

MPS serves most of the city of Mesa, plus small portions of Tempe and Chandler. It also takes students from the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community.

The district has 82 schools, which includes 55 elementary schools, nine junior high schools, six comprehensive high schools, and several alternative schools.

Enrollment

Mesa Public Schools has seen a decline in enrollment in the 21st century, much of which can be attributed to the decline in affordability of housing. As families become cost-burdened by rental and home ownership costs, they have been relocating to less expensive cities. In Mesa, rents increased by an average of 60% from 2017 to 2023. In Arizona, "the monthly cost of homeownership (excluding the 2022-23 increase in interest rates) for the average home in Arizona increased by 73%, from $1,750 in August 2017 to $3,032 in August 2023." The average house price in the state has increased 216% since 2000, while wages have only increased by an average of 48% in the same time period.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Mesa Public Schools” as school district in Arizona, United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mesa, Public and Schools.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2017, 2023, 2022, 2000—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1946-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Mesa, Public and Schools providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Mesa Public Schools”, the useful work is to connect “school district in Arizona, United States” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6821077. VIAF identifies the subject as 136357684. The Library of Congress control number is no98088154. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017, 2023, 2022 and 2000.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Mesa Public Schools”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Mesa Public Schools primary sources, Mesa Public Schools archive and Mesa research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mesa Public Schools”?
  2. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Mesa Public Schools” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.