September Newsletter

Head of School

September is arguably the best month of the year in the Pacific Northwest. Wy’East Academy is now up & running for our 13th year with one of our largest student bodies ever. One of the biggest changes from last year is that the Academy is now a single cohort which has been a total gamechanger for staff & students. Our new staff members Netanya Beard (Dean of Students), Alexis Buzzell (Teacher), Kevin Simpers (MTB Director), Dakoda Osusky (MTB Coach/Residential), Will Stephens (Residential), Joshua Kozuma (Cook) & Jim Hanseder (Maintenance) have all done an amazing job acclimating to our dynamic environment. All of the students have been making the most out of the sunny weather while also working hard in the classroom ahead of a busy semester of upcoming tests & travel. Our new weekly Coffee with the Head of School has been a fun opportunity to open up communication between the administration & parents this year & we look forward to seeing parents every Tuesday at 11AM PST. Parents weekend is coming up soon so please RSVP for October 15-17 so we can hold a spot for you. Thank you for your support & partnership in preparing this amazing batch of young adults for the road ahead.

-Mike Hanley

Hanley took some time to work with The Freeskiers in the gym

Academic

Fall is here and the students have been getting back into the swing of things! Our new students have been getting acclimated to their Edgenuity classes. Students have been crushing it, with many getting ahead in their classes to prepare for the upcoming trips this October. The PSAT and SAT will be held on campus during class time next month for the students who have signed up. We will be holding a practice PSAT during the last week of September to help students prepare.

Alexis Buzzell chose Kade Kaluza for Student of the Month because he uses class time wisely by working hard to get ahead and asking questions when needed.

Asa Howe chose Harper Simon for Student of the Month because he has low idle times on Edgenuity and shows up to class prepared and ready to work hard.

-Alexis Buzzell & Asa Howe

Student Life

Hey Families,
It’s hard to believe that we are already one month into the school year. All the students have settled and moved into their cabins. We have been lucky to have lots of sunny days on campus which has led to countless days of skating and biking in the sun. There has been, and continues to be an exceptional amount of positive energy between students and staff. This year we have welcomed two new residential staff members, Will and Dakoda. It has been inspiring to watch both Will and Dakoda engage, support and ride with the students during the week and on weekends.

In addition, we would also like to introduce the elected student representatives; Jonathan Fisher, William Ryan, Arianna Vergani, and Shiloh Greenfield. We have been holding student representative meetings on Fridays and students have come to the meetings prepared with ideas and solutions. We are excited to continue to support our students in sharing their ideas and helping them grow as leaders.

Every Sunday afternoon, each and every student has been deep cleaning their cabins. It has been really awesome to see our students stepping up to this responsibility and working together as a team to clean their rooms and cabins each weekend. In addition to spending weekends deep cleaning, catching up on school work, and relaxing we have also had a scheduled weekend activity with the goal of taking students off campus and experiencing the wonders that the Pacific Northwest has to offer. So far we have taken students to several different skateparks each with their own unique features, as well as a hike in the Columbia River Gorge. Other weekend activities include trips to Sandy for thrift shopping and lunch at the Sandy Food Carts & exploring downtown Hood River.

We would like to thank all of our parents for their continued support, communication and being a part of the Wy’East family. Lastly, of important note to all parents, PTO meetings are scheduled on the second Wednesday of each month. We have been excited to see new faces at recent meetings and look forward to welcoming additional parents. Thank you!

-Netanya Beard, Luke Giacopelli, Levi Thompson, Dakoda Oshusky & Will Stephens

Freeski

Greeting Freeski Families,

What a great first month we have had on the Freeski Team. From day one the squad has been driven and stoked to progress. We have been grinding core workouts, stretching, yoga and daily meditation. Each athlete has certainly shown growth in their flexibility and strength already. In addition to all the strength and flexibility training we have had countless progressive trampoline sessions working on fundamentals and the root of each trick whether big or small. Each athlete has set out detailed, realistic and attainable goals for our upcoming trip to Maximize in Montreal, Canada. In preparation for the trip we typically spend a decent amount of time on the trampolines before taking those tricks to our campus airbag where we can work out any additional kinks in their goals. We also have had some great progression on our dry slope rail setup. Each athlete has really been able to wipe off the dust on their tricks and check of some new ones along the way. Our first surf trip of the semester was a success with many kids catching their first waves, flipping down the sand dunes or playing spikeball on the beach! Needless to say, the team camaraderie is at an all time high and we are very excited for what lies ahead this year with a solid team from all around the world

All the best,
Brian "Breezy" McCarthy & Topher Newett

The Freeski squad had a blast in Pacific City!

Snowboard

Welcome parents, friends, and students to the first of many monthly newsletters! On behalf of the snowboarding team, I’m so proud to report that September was nothing short of amazing, and how happy I am to have the crew back together with a few new faces! We have such a solid and talented bunch of young adults bringing contagious energy to training every day. For those of you who aren’t fully aware, I’ve combined coaching forces with the Academy’s most experienced skateboarding legend, Jamie Weller. Since every single person on the team has a desire to progress in both snowboarding and skateboarding, it has been an absolute pleasure exposing our team to the knowledge that Jamie has in the skateboarding world. Not only that, but Jamie is also responsible for creating and building everything that they are skating on campus. And I mean everything!

Something else new for this year, now that we’ve made it past the strict protocols of small cohorts, is we have been training as much as possible in a big group of the “on snow” athletes to get as much cross-over coaching techniques as possible. These kids are getting input from Brian “Breezy” McCarthy, our Director of Skiing, and Christopher “Topher” Newett, our assistant ski coach and social media marketing guru, which makes for a pretty stacked team of coaches!

As far as our specific training highlights go for the first month, we have everyone grinding on the dry slope facilities, pushing limits, and learning new tricks almost daily. For some, learning the fundamentals of proper board control and gaining the confidence to drop into the big air jump for the first time, for others working on tricks like switch front blunt same way, or hardway cab 270 backlip 270 out, and everything in between. (Those tricks are about as insane as they sound). To piggyback the progression on the dry slope, the skateboarding skill level is rising just as quickly! We’ve already been surfing on the coast, skating in Hood River, and taking advantage of the top tier training facilities that we call home. My goal is to keep this momentum going for the entire school year. I absolutely love what I’m seeing from the crew so far, and as always want to thank you all for supporting us as we continue to shape the lives of your children.

Wishing each of you all the best,

Brandon Sorel & Jamie Weller

Mountain Bike

We are stoked on how the Mountain Bike Program has been so far! The energy of the team has been incredible. The group we have this year is one of the most well rounded teams you can have. There are students that are skilled in racing, jumping, and riding the skatepark. With this team, there will be a lot of learning and growth that happens this year. The students are feeding off each other's energy and the progression has already begun.

The feedback we got for the students about the trail work we did over the summer has been awesome to hear. This has motivated us to work on building new features in the backyard to give the students more opportunity to gain new skills. The students have been taking note of our work and have been putting in work on their own features & trails. In addition to the trail work, we have established a relationship with Dan Shell. Dan is a mobile bike mechanic who is willing to come up and work on the students bikes. We are talking to Dan about coming up one day during the week to go over basic bicycle maintenance with the students.

Sea Otter is almost upon us and everyone is looking forward to the event. We are excited for this event as we have students racing among different events, categories, and age groups. The students have been working on their resumes for Sea Otter and we've been encouraging them to check out the list of sponsors at the event whom they'd want to talk to.

-Kevin Simpers & Dakoda Oshusky

Parents Weekend

Our annual Parents Weekend is coming up! Come join us on campus from October 15-17th for a weekend of fun. If you are looking for somewhere to stay, we have availability in our new Roamer Sites to stay on campus. Please RSVP with Luke at luke@wyeastacademy.com if you plan on coming!

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