Nisley Elementary School

Nisley Elementary School, a mid-sized primary school in GRAND JUNCTION, Colorado, run under Mesa County Valley School District No. 51, hosts 346 students, covering grades pre-K through 5.

Mesa County Valley School District No. 51 comprises 45 schools with combined enrollment of 20,344 students; Nisley Elementary School is among them.

Demographically, Nisley Elementary School lists that 53% of students identify as White, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups; the rest consists of 39% Hispanic, 4% multiracial. That is considerably less White than the county at large, where the share is closer to 82%.

Looking at the economic backdrop, Nisley Elementary School records 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 16.5:1. That tracks the state average closely. About 82% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, Mesa County runs at roughly 53%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, Nisley Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 17.3%, the actual is 17.8%, a residual of +0.5 points.

In the area at large, census data for Mesa County shows median household income runs about $73,658, roughly 32% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 7%. Nisley Elementary School is one of 57 public schools in Mesa County (combined enrollment of about 22,232 students).

Nearest neighbor: Bookcliff Middle School, around 0.6 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Nisley Elementary School. On composite proficiency, Nisley Elementary School comes 5th of 5 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 33.3%.

Nisley Elementary School operates from a downtown location.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count shrank 27%: 472 students in 2018 compared to 346 in 2025. Class-load math has rose: from 15.2:1 in 2018 to 16.5:1 in 2025.

On the community side, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.