Mesa Verde Middle School, located in Rancho Penasquitos, a suburb of northern San Diego, California, exemplifies the educational heights that can be attained when a solid partnership exists between school and community. Built in 1994 and situated on over 30 acres, the campus has 59 permanent classrooms clustered into three main villages, a number of conference rooms, an office complex, a performing arts center, band and orchestra rooms, four computer labs, a fitness lab, a cafeteria, a gymnasium, large playing fields, athletic facilities, and several specially designed rooms for meeting the needs of students who have severe handicaps. The library, in addition to housing the student circulation collection, also provides technological media access. Each classroom has at least two computers; an installed LCD Projector system, document camera, and all are networked to the site file server. From the network, informational software, as well as access to the Internet is provided school-wide.

Mesa Verde Middle School enjoys an excellent reputation within the immediate and outer lying communities of San Diego and Poway. MVMS became the first school at the secondary level within the Poway Unified School District to achieve an API score over 900. Mesa Verde currently has an API score of 933. MVMS is a California Distinguished School and a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. Students and teachers from MVMS are routinely honored for excellence each year from outside agencies like the San Diego County Fair, the California Association of Directors of Activities, the California Association of Student Leaders, the Science Olympiad, and from various service clubs (e.g.: Lions Club, Rotary Club, etc.) and Regional and State Band and Orchestra organizations.