QCUSD names new elementary school

Nikki Link, East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Ariz.)
·3 min read

May 19—The Queen Creek Unified School District Governing Board unveiled the name of its newest elementary school — Mountain Trail Academy.

Construction is slated to begin this month with a groundbreaking ceremony at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 21.

Mountain Trail Academy will be located on more than 11 acres at the intersection of East Galveston Street and South Mountain Road in Mesa. The 90,000-square-foot building will serve around 1,000 students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Designed by SPS+ Architects, the school will be constructed by McCarthy Building Companies.

Amanda deNight, QCUSD director of marketing and public relations, gave further details on the actual naming process.

"The process starts with a subcommittee," she said.

Made up of teachers, parents, the principal and a student, "they do research about what was originally in that area" or what the area was known for, she continued.

The school's name should reflect the comumunity's history.

"They submitted three names to the governing board," deNight said.

Ultimately, Mountain Trail came out on top.

While the school will be QCUSD's 10th elementary school, it will only be the second STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) focused facility. Following the curriculum, Mountain Trail will have specialized facilities to meet the needs of students and help them learn.

"They're going to have flexible youth learning spaces, makerspaces, they're going to have robotics, they're going to have coding," deNight said.

The 40 planned makerspace classrooms will be equipped with collaborative seating arrangements to facilitate problem solving, hands-on learning and creative expression. The 10 flex-use spaces will be the latest move by the district to accommodate adaptive learning models in an effort "to help create students that are going to be forward thinkers or out-of-the-box thinkers," deNight said.

"It's important to us to be able to provide all of our students with an exceptional education, and that includes preparing them for the life they're going to lead outside of school," she continued. "One thing that I talk to parents about is we're educating students for and preparing them for jobs that don't even exist yet."

In addition to its STEAM-focused curriculum, Mountain Trail Academy will address overcrowding. QCUSD has been named the fastest-growing school district in the state and the new facility will help meet the needs of the expanding community.

The funding for construction and acquisition of the land for Mountain Trail was actually awarded by the State Schools Division (SSD), which requires a qualification process and is calculated on schools reaching their capacity.

"As the fastest-growing school district in the state, we are always going to need some additional space," deNight said. "So, the SSD has awarded us with this money to be able to help with the growing communities over in our northern region."

Current projections see construction wrapping up on Mountain Trail in May 2025, and welcoming students as soon as the 2025-26 school year. For more information on the progress of the school's construction, visit qcusd.org/construction-updates.