Summer Semester 2021

Complete up to a full semester’s worth of classes or simply get ahead of the school year while living in a supportive and healthy athletic training environment. Students coupling Wy’East’s summer and fall terms will complete a full year of college preparatory academics by December and have the entire winter to focus solely on the winter sports training program and coach of their choice each December through April, anywhere in the world. Like any other Wy’East semester, students will have 4-6 hours per day for athletics and up to 4 hours per day for classroom academics. While the complete 12 week semester is ideal for young national team from around the world or for those with such aspirations, abbreviated options provide students and families with greater flexibility.

CHOOSE FROM ONE OF THREE OPTIONS:

ONE.
May 10 - July 31 (12 Weeks)

Up to 4 credits

2-4 hours classroom daily, and
4-6 hours athletics.

TWO.
June 12 - July 31 (7 Weeks)
Up to 2 credits
2 hours classroom daily, and
4-6 hours athletics.

TWO.
June 12 - July 31 (7 Weeks)
Up to 2 credits
2 hours classroom daily, and
4-6 hours athletics.

LEARN MORE™
To customize summer semester dates or to learn more, please call or email:
Dan Tattersfield, Director of Admissions
dan@wyeastacademy.com
503-703-8678

March Newsletter

Head Of School

Winter is in full swing here in Oregon & all of the students got to take advantage of the fresh snow all the way down to campus. College acceptance letters have been rolling in for our seniors with the juniors preparing to apply for early acceptance applications to colleges all over the United States. Students have been stacking up medals on the road from Nevada to Colorado with more trips looming on the horizon. All of our staff & students have been making the most out of the amazing opportunities they have found in the rain, sleet, snow & sunshine of the Pacific Northwest in February. Our student representatives are now meeting with the staff weekly to further improve the lines of communication between the staff & students. Time is flying by & there never seems to be enough hours in the day but it has been fun to watch the students grow up & achieve their goals. 
 

-Mike Hanley

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Academics

February has been filled with lots of fun and snow! Students are in the zone and accomplishing academics with the overall GPA average of 3.27 (B+). We are almost to midterms already and our goal is to end the semester with an overall GPA average of 3.5.

Most freshman, sophomore and juniors practiced for the SAT by completing Reading, Writing and Math Sections weekly. We will have an SAT School Day on March 3rd, with the make up date being April 13th. Our students have the advantage to test in the classroom they regularly study in with the SAT School Day option. The cost is $54. Please reach out if you haven’t already told us that you would like your child to test.

Several of our seniors have received college acceptances this month! Colleges/Universities that our students have been accepted to include University of Redlands, New York University, Westminster, Sierra Nevada University, University of Utah, University of Montana, University of Vermont, Fordham University, and University of Colorado at Boulder.

Almost all teams were traveling this month, so this calls for a front load approach to academics. The teachers ask students to complete all assignments that will be due throughout the duration of their trip before they travel. We ask them to be proactive so they can be more focused on competitions when away from campus.
 

Students of Month:

Jaime selected Collin Schubert for his early arrival to the classroom, leadership among his peers and perseverance with schoolwork and college applications.

Kayla selected Konnor Ralph because of his tremendous literary efforts,  his proactive work ethic, and his attention to detail.

Robbie selected Kade Kaluza for his consistent effort, wonderfully pleasant and respectful attitude towards others, and for seeking out help when he needs it!

The students tuning into an episode of Industry Insighters™, featuring the owner of Malakye, Chad Mihalick

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Student Life

Skateboard

Greetings skate families,
 

This February we had a ton of snow on campus, our outdoor skatepark was completely buried! With this we were able to set up a bunch of jumps and rail features all over campus. You know, sometimes the skaters just gotta have some fun in the snow too! So that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. Our campus was a winter wonderland and the kids have been having the best time with it. Also, we’ve been going snowboarding at Timberline 1 to 2 days a week. It’s been so much fun. Lot’s of powder days and I think it’s so great to mix it up since we skate so much. The kids keep asking me to go more! 

We’ve been getting a bunch of skating in as well. Lot’s of time in our indoor park but also we squeezed in a great trip to Eugene as well as a bunch of Portland double athletic days when the weather was nice. Right now we’re gearing up for our California trip. We’re planning on spending a week and a half out there chasing the sunshine. The kids have been wanting to go to California all year so I am very excited to be making this happen for them! 

-Jamie Weller

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Mountain Bike

Hello Bike Families, 
 

February has been another busy month! We had a very successful trip to Bootleg Canyon outside of Las Vegas for our first race of the semester, where we took a number of podiums, camped and even played tourist and saw the Hoover Dam!
 

DH results - Congratulations to Etan and Taylor taking 2nd and 3rd in Cat 1 15-16, Brooke 1st in Cat 1 15-29(to young to race pro), Sierra 3rd in U14, Brandon taking 4th in(which would have placed him in 6th in an energy drink filled pro podium)

Enduro results - Congratulations to JT Fisher on taking 5th in Cat 1 17-18, Harper on 5th in Cat 2 15-18, Quinn on 3rd in JR 11-14, and Curran on racing his first race!! 

We returned to a snow apocalypse and have been able to take advantage of it with some great turns at Meadows while remaining to keep the wheels moving and preparing for Tennessee National. We have had some great days particularly in Capitol Forest. 
 

Wynn Berns & Tyler Vollopotto

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Snowboard

Hello Snowboard Families,

We are delighted to be reporting to you from sunny Colorado, but before we get ahead of ourselves, there are some things worth mentioning that happened during the beginning of the month back in Oregon. We were finally blessed with a few snow storms allowing the team to enjoy some proper Pow Days! The team explored parts of Timberline outside of the terrain park that led to new tricks being landed by almost everyone. There’s something contagious about trying new tricks off of a pow jump with minimal consequences if you don’t find yourself back on your feet. With that mentality, the kids took full advantage! Also, we were able to do the legendary run from Timberline Resort down to Government Camp which could be considered a right of passage. If that wasn’t enough, the team took full advantage of snowy evenings riding the upper bowl cliffs at Ski Bowl and spending hours lapping the rail park via the rope tow. Needless to say it was difficult to leave Oregon amidst the snow storms blessing our home but Colorado was calling.

As most of you know, we’ve been here since February 17 and will be staying through March 5. Our time thus far has been nothing short of productive as Copper Mountain has quite possibly the best park we’ve seen them build. The sun has been shinning, the crew has been grinding, and there isn’t much more we could ask for. Some highlights include Isabella, Arianna, and Alessia competing in their first ever Rev Tour event over in Aspen! This is a big milestone for these 3 girls to see what the stage of professional snowboarding looks like being that the course they competed on was the actual X-Games course for 2021. We are proud to share that all 3 girls were able to handle the size of the course and are now that much closer to competing at that level. The rest of the crew has been stacking clips at Copper and pushing their abilities daily. We look forward to our finals days here in Colorado before heading back to campus where the winter storms haven’t seemed to let up.

Cheers,
Elijah Teter, Brandon Sorel & Luke Giacopelli

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Greetings Ski Families!
 

The month of February has been kind to us! We had some beautiful sunny days lapping Timberline in the beginning of the month, and then right before we took off for our trip to CO, a massive storm system blew in dumping over 5 ft of snow in just a weeks time! The snow was deep and the POW skiing was all time! Everyone has been firing on all cylinders working through goals and training hard both on and off snow. 

We successfully made it to CO and have been utilizing our time here training at Woodward Copper. The weather has been very beachy with multiple sunny days in a row! A nice little break from all the snow we had been seeing in OR. A lot of firsts have gone down already, including some new doubles corks, and as the trip starts to wind down everyone is hungry to check off their goals before we head back to OR. 

We’ve have had a great month, and as March approaches we look forward to going home to all the snow, continuing to train hard, and springtime which is right around the corner!

-Brian McCarthy, Kevin Merchant & Griffin Dunne

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Life Improvement through People, Place & Passion

The Archives™. Below you will find a collection of photos taken over the course of our Fall Semester.

The first Surf Trip of the Semester to Pacific City.

The Outdoor Program exploring White River Falls in Central Oregon

Hiking around Mount Hood

The Girls hiking Tamanawa Falls

Zoe, Ralphie & Tanner effectively social distance in The Classroom

Kade & Harper get to work on their favorite activity…Laundry!

Brooke throws down a whip in The Concrete Jungle™

Jumping around the Outdoor Supertramp

Zander throws down a front lip in The Concrete Jungle™

Head of School Mike Hanley hands out Thanksgiving beverages

Italian Twins Arianna & Alessia hike a feature

Rico & Owen hold it down in B.O.B

Zander rips a front 5-0 in B.O,B

Ralphy tallies another trick to the arsenal

Coach Griffen Dunne blasts over The Mulch Jump

The Snowboarders hanging out in some Pow

Zoe hangs out on a tube before sending it down!

The Skiiers do a group yoga session in B.O.B

Luka gets down on The DrySlope™

Sand Skiing on The Oregon Coast

Fall Semester was a blast!

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Head of School

The return of staff & students this semester has marked a transitional shift into a new phase of operating here at Wy’East Academy. Our Operational Blueprint has allowed us to continually operating throughout the global pandemic due to our adherence to policies around PPE’s, social distancing & quarantining guidelines. We have more staff & students on campus than ever before as we continue to raise the bar on expectations across all of our programs; our average GPA is higher than it has ever been before, students get more rest than they ever have before & students have already achieved a dozen podiums in competitions. Acceptance letters are arriving daily for our amazing seniors with juniors now beginning the college application process. With the recent news that our staff will be eligible to getting vaccinated beginning January 25th we are now excited to start building out plans for the upcoming Summer & Fall semesters while space will be limited due to the increased interest in the Academy. Registrations have now started to come in for both Summer & Fall, so please make sure to secure your spot for next year while space is still available. Thank you for your continued support with this amazing group of students!

-Mike Hanley

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Academics

January is an exciting time of year. Usually, this month is full of powder, but this time it came with all seasons and fresh faces. We welcomed several new students this semester—at 57 students, we have our largest student body on Wy’East record. Teachers started out the semester by securing course enrollments and ensuring students are well prepared. Each student will master life skills and goal setting with an Advisory Course. The theme for 8th grade is Independent Living, Freshman are focused on Self Reflection, Sophomores are working on Preparation & Passions, Juniors are building their Philosophy, and Seniors are scouring their options for College & Careers. For the initial two weeks, academic hours were held in the cabins (unless students from the same cabin requested or earned extra assistance). We held daily zoom meetings and walked around campus to greet our students through the window or social distancing at the front door. We look forward to opening our classroom doors for more normality in February!

-Kayla, Robbie, and Jaime

Kayla Hokanson’s student of the month is Luka Kuharic for setting high personal goals, staying on track to achieve them, and consistently working ahead of pace.

Robbie Walters’ student of the month: Sierra Semsak.  Sierra is adjusting quickly and is doing a great job of staying on top of her work.

Jaime Vincent’s student of the month is Bradley Morse for being a kind roommate, taking advantage of academic hours and consistently wearing his facemask!

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Student Life

We would like to welcome all the new students and families to Wy’East Academy. Also welcome back returning students and families. The students have settled in and jumped straight into the new year with great spirits. We have been very lucky to have some sunshine for everyone to enjoy the dry slopes and skate park. As the students end their 2 week quarantine, we have some very exciting activities planned out for the semester. The last weekend of January we have the skate team going to cosmic tubing up at Ski Bowl, ski team going to Falls Creek falls, the girls cohort will be battling the Snowboard boys at paintball, and mountain bike going to Skamania Lodge for a day of ziplining. The residential staff are all very excited to get to know our students better as the semester continues.  It's our hope that by setting expectations and establishing a healthy routine early in the semester that all students will succeed in academics and athletics. 
 

-Phil Geyselears, Alissa Hetzel, Byron O'Leary Bay, Nick Garcia, Aaron Reynolds, Natalia Thorenson & Clayton Greenburg

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Freeski

Greetings Freeski Families!

I hope everyone has enjoyed a happy and healthy holiday break with some time at home with their student athletes! We are excited to have everyone back on campus and to start semester two as strong and safely as possible

Timberline is up and operating at full swing with one of the best park set ups I have seen in my 5 winters at Hood!! There is a wide variety of features to train on giving our athletes the proper stepping stones to ski at the highest level. We hit the ground running week one with 3 double ski days utilizing some of beautiful weather we’ve had to start the semester. 

We have also had a few early opportunities to compete in our local USASA events series. This has provided a great opportunity to get back into that competitive space, and prepare for larger events ahead! Our team had a number of athletes across a variety of age groups finding the podium. The mantra for this season remains “train harder than you compete” and the squad has been doing just that!

- Brian McCarthy, Kevin "Tweak" Merchant & Griffin Dunne

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Mountain Bike

Dear Mountain Bike Families,

It’s been a great start to a great semester so far filled with a ton of new energy from both new students and staff. The bike program is here to stay and making noise around the industry all before our first race and it's just our first year. Thank you all for being a part of the program from the start, we are excited to continue to build it around you all. We are fortunate to be able to increase our coaching, digging, maintenance and shuttle access. We have ridden the cat, campus, Sandy Ridge, Ravens Ridge, Syncline, and been able to ski and snowboard at both Meadows and Timberline. Students have been working hard doing various drills, picking apart and working on different sections.

We are excited to go to Tennessee and Nevada as a team and get everyone racing and experiencing some awesome new trails and areas.

We are also in the process of ordering some team jerseys and pants and working on a team discount from Dakine to order bike travel cases, and other bike gear. As it continues to be cold we recommend getting cold weather riding gear in particular gloves, waterproof socks, rain jacket and base layers as well as a boot dryer.

More good news, we have a new Trampoline bike and the new airbag is on its way and hoping to get it up in the coming weeks.


-Wynn Berns & Tyler Villopoto

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Skateboard

Greetings skate families,

I hope everyone had a great holiday break and got to spend some good quality time with their kids. It was very awesome to witness the skate crew roll back on campus with lots of energy and excitement!

Despite a couple injuries, the first 2 weeks of skateboarding has gotten off to a great start. The weather has been gorgeous and we’ve been taking full advantage of it. We’ve done several double days of athletics to soak up as much of this sunshine and to skate as much as possible. We’ve spent a lot of our time exploring the city and skateboarding schoolyards and street spots. It’s been really nice getting them off campus and if everyone can stay on pace with school we will continue to do these long days!

I’m very thrilled to be working with all these kids. This year has been really fun and I’m very excited to see what happens this next semester!

Jamie Weller & David Lobasyuk

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Snowboard

Hey Families, 

The winter semester is off to an incredible start for the snowboard crew! The energy both on hill and on campus is electric with progression happening in all aspects. We are excited to have everyone back from holiday break and to welcome some new student athletes to the squad who are coming in eager to get after it. The team has been utilizing time on the trampolines, in the skatepark, on the dry slopes, and of course up on the mountain where Timberline has created one of the best terrain parks in the country! The list of new tricks that the kids have learned in the short time since being back is outstanding. They are inspired to film clips on a daily basis producing content that hopefully all of you parents are able to watch and enjoy.  

Along with the media content being pumped out, our crew was able to participate in the first USASA contests of the season for our region. On the female side, Isabella Gerry has been racking up the gold medals in both rail jam and slope style events followed by Hazel Predelski taking home a silver medal. For the boys, a huge congratulations goes to Aaron Gander for earning a silver medal in his first ever slope style contest! To follow him up, both Bradley Morse and Willie (William Parker Ryan) have earned some bronze medals along the way. We would love to see everyone on the team competing in these upcoming USASA events to share in the excitement and have the chance to take home some prizes!  

January has certainly been good to all of us here at Wy’East. We are hoping for Mother Nature to bless with a few pow days in February but until the storms hit, we will gladly be soaking up the sun in one of the best parks around curtesy of Timberline’s park crew. 

-Elijah Teter, Brandon Sorel & Luke Giacopelli

December Newsletter

Head of School

As our fall semester comes to a close, we are all focused on ending 2020 on a high note. Our seniors have now begun receiving acceptance letters & scholarship offers to universities all over America while the underclassmen are pushing the average GPA higher than it has ever been. More athletic competitions are returning by the day & our coaches have been registering athletes & booking accommodations. Covid vaccines are now being given to front line health care professionals in Oregon with Child Care Agencies being targeted for vaccinations in the spring of 2021. The upcoming winter semester will have the largest group of staff & students in the history of Wy’East Academy & we are looking forward to hosting six cohorts here in January. We are now looking at a waitlist of students for several programs with applications now coming in for the summer & fall semesters, so please make sure to follow up with Dan Tattersfield to reserve your spot for next year. We thank you all for your continued support & wish you a happy & healthy holiday season.

-Mike Hanley

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Academics

December was the month of improving GPAs, preparing for and taking finals, and snowboarding with students and teachers.  We both had tons of fun spending time up the mountain with our students.  

As we wrap up the end of the year, we've reflected on the gratitude we have for our students, this school, and this season.  May everyone have happy holidays with family and friends.  Courses will start on January 11th, but they are available January 1st if anyone would like to get a head start.  We hope next semester students will all be able to maintain and stay ahead of pace.

 Jaime Vincent's student of the month is Alessia Vergani for being proactive, improving her GPA, and creating tunes to play in the background of her snowboard edits.

 Kayla Hokanson's student of the month is Brooke Anderson for her willingness to go above and beyond, her diligence and hard work in getting exceptional grades, and her helpfulness towards her peers.

- Jaime Vincent & Kayla Hokanson

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Residential

Our Students wrapped up the semester with a trip to a Paintball Course

We are so proud of how far our students have come from the beginning of the semester to the end. This year has not been easy on anyone but they were able to shine the light on things to make it a great semester. We wrapped up the semester with a few fun activities. The students enjoyed some classic snow tubing up at Ski Bowl. Everyone got to experience snow on campus, we even had a few snowball fights break out! We ended the semester strong with some team building activities at Splat Action to play a couple rounds of paintball. The Skiers played against The Snowboarders and The Mountain Bikers faces off against Skaters. Everyone had a blast in the mud. We hope everyone has a great holiday season and spends some quality time with their family. We look forward to seeing everyone in January!

-Phil Geyselears. Alissa Hetzel, Nick Garcia, Clayton Greenburg, Natalia Thorenson & Aaron Reynolds

Zoe hopping on for a ride while tubing

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Freeski

First and foremost as a ski staff we would like to wholeheartedly thank all of you for being a part of an amazing semester! We faced our fair share of challenges along the way, in an ever changing landscape that we knew was going to be unknown, but we managed to stay the course and make the most of the opportunities we were given. We appreciate you all trusting in us to make the right decisions, and your continued support throughout the first semester. We spent a great deal of time and effort into preparing for the upcoming competition season, and as a staff we feel prepared, and all agree that this semester was a great success! We are excited to hit the ground running and take on whatever second semester has in store!

We hope everyone enjoys a happy, healthy holiday break!

-Brian McCarthy, Topher Newett & Griffin Dunne

Luka put in work on The Dry Slope™ this past semester

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Mountain Bike

Happy Holidays Mountain Bike Families!

 Thank you all for a great first semester of this program. We are excited for the program to grow and to see the students continuing to improve and reach their goals. We are excited to welcome some new students and staff for the second semester. We only have a few more spots available so if you know anyone that is interested please make sure to jump on the opportunity before it is too late.

Since it is the Holiday season we thought it would be good to give some gift ideas that your students would benefit from next semester. First: warm and waterproof riding gear, including multiple riding pants, jacket, gloves, socks and base layers.Second: boot dryer. We plan to ride no matter the weather. 

Hope everyone has a great Holiday Season and we look forward to seeing you all back here very soon, 

-Wynn Berns

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Snowboard

Well, it happened sooner than expected. Holiday break is upon us and the Fall Semester has come to conclusion. December was jam packed with sunny park laps in the beginning followed by some more traditional Oregon weather that, as we like to say, builds grit! The team got into a routine of waking up, warming up, and training hard followed by afternoon hours focused on academics where that same work ethic expectation has been set. We are incredibly proud of these young adults for what they have accomplished both on and off the hill, all with a sense of lighthearted laughter in everything they do. To say we are excited for next semester is an understatement! But until then, we hope you all are enjoying the time you have together as families celebrating the holiday. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Years and all that! See you back on campus in January.

-Elijah Teter, Brandon Sorel & Luke Giacopelli

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Skateboard

Greetings skate families! 

I hope the kids are off to a fantastic Holiday break and I want to wish each of you Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year! I cannot believe the semester is already over with, but It’s been very fun to watch all the kids accomplishing their goals and I’m very excited to see what next semester has in store for us. It’s currently looking like we will have 3 new students joining our program and a new assistant coach as well! 

This has been a year of so many new challenges and I just want to thank all of the students and parents for understanding that we can only control the controllables. In a non-Covid world we would have traveled, competed and filmed so much more. I’m very hopeful that once the vaccine becomes more readily available, we can all get back to business as usual.

While we are on break, please remember to have lots of fun and enjoy as much time as possible with your kids! I cannot wait to hear all about their holiday adventures! Stay safe, stay healthy!

All the best,

Jamie Weller

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Welcome to the second semester of the 2020/2021 Wy’East Academy school year! For those of you who missed our orientation, have no fear! We recorded the Zoom call and posted it below for your viewing. For any additional questions, please email Mike at mike.hanley@wyeastacademy.com.

Greetings Families,

Over the past two weeks our academy staff have all been planning & preparing for our biggest arrival day ever to ensure that we were prepared to adapt to all of the new rules & regulations around Covid 19. Following a successful summer of camps & our biggest group of academy students ever we are proud to report that there was not a single case of Covid across the hundreds of skiers, snowboarders, skateboarders & mountain bike campers, students or staff! It has been amazing to watch the campus come to life along with upskilling the best staff we have ever had here going into the 2020-2021 school year.  Following the recent windstorm that knocked out power in the Mount Hood area we have not been able to recover power due to the forest fires that have now been growing around Oregon. Due to these unforeseen circumstances we have made the decision to push our arrival day back a couple days to Wednesday, September 16. 

We have been working with the local government along with the local power company to be as prepared as possible, but with the dynamic paradigm that we are currently facing, we cannot guarantee that the power would be back up in time for a Saturday arrival. We will continue to keep all of you abridged on how things are developing here. Your understanding is greatly appreciated in these challenging times, but we know that this is still going to be the best year ever. 

Thank you,

Mike Hanley, Head of School 

 and 

 Dan Tattersfield, Director of Admissions

Dear Wy’East Mountain Academy Families,

I am happy to announce that Mike Hanley, current Global VP of Performance Adventure for We Are Camp, is named as Wy’East Mountain Academy’s new Interim Head of School.  Mike has a long and successful history at Wy’East Mountain Academy having been one of the academy’s founders in 2009.  He holds bachelor’s degrees in History and French from the University of Utah as well as a master’s degree in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical History from Swansea University in Wales.  As a high-performance coach, Mike took several athletes to the Olympics for the United States (including several academy alumni), New Zealand, and other nations.

About Mike

After growing up in Southern California, Mike went to high school in Park City, Utah where he began his career in freestyle skiing for the United States. This led to a short-lived professional career following a diving scholarship in the NCAA system, which is where he learned the time management skills to balance high performance sport with academia. Setting goals that seemed beyond reach ended awarding Mike with academic scholarships to study in Switzerland, France, and Spain while also working for the Undergraduate Studies Department to help create student schedules designed to optimize success.  He used these same skills as a coach to bring athletes to podiums at the X-Games and Dew Tour by the time he was only 24-years old. After getting married and completing graduate school, Mike began teaching and coaching back in the United States with two separate academies before finally settling down in Oregon with his wife and two daughters. 

Head of School Search

Along with being responsible for the overall wellbeing of our students and staff, Mike will work closely with myself and our Head of School Search Committee.  Mike’s founding vision and day-to-day experience with the students and staff will be critical in selecting the right person to lead this academy throughout this next decade.

Departing Headmaster, Successful Transitions

We are grateful for the incredible position in which departing Headmaster, Ann Scott, is leaving the school.  Under her leadership our school gained accreditation, its ability to issue visas for our international students, club certification with US Ski and Snowboard, expanded our licensed school capacity, and implemented myriad trainings and protocols to improve the student experience.  We are further grateful for her eagerness to work with Mike and Jaime Vincent, our classroom teacher, throughout this next academic year to ensure proper class enrollments and accurate transcripts leading to our goal of a 100% university acceptance rate.  Our alumni are the exceptional students each university seeks to recruit, so Mike, Jaime, and Ann will work hard to tell your student’s unique story ensuring a successful transition to life after Wy’East.

Wy’East’s future could not look brighter as an extremely solid foundation is in place for an enduring learning institution with a passion for student engagement and success.  On behalf of our staff, administration, and board of trustees, I thank you for being part of this incredible journey.

Very truly,

Kevin English

President

By Elijah Teter

Director of Snowboarding

Growing up each year on the far coast in Vermont you would hear of the Legend that surrounds Mt. Hood with the camps like High Cascade and Windells.  The raddest of the snowboard community from around the world would come together each summer. The thought of soft, summery snow seemed like a modern day airbag to me as I looked over and saw my reflection in the green ice of the opposing halfpipe wall back in Vermont.

I always kept a vision and held onto it with passion and determination. Because I had a dream and was wiling to chase it vigorously, I made my way through the ranks of USASA and eventually landed a spot on the US Developmental team, which gave me my first line into Windells and High Cascade.  In those days the camps didn’t have chair lifts so we’d hike up the hill to the pipe and park and then hike for every jump. It was thoroughly exhausting, but I loved every minute of it.

Quickly I learned about the summer heat, UV, and altitude and its depleting effects. Being from the East, these concepts were completely foreign to me.  Through this suffering, I learned about the importance of fruit and electrolytes. I discovered that by adding some salt and honey to my water, my body could retain the water it needed so I could continue progressing each day on snow.  It was a basic concept, but one that I continue to teach my pupils as we travel the world to these incredible high altitude places or even when we are home on Mt. Hood’s 11,000+ foot peak.

The next summer I found my stride and voice.  This formerly shy kid from Vermont suddenly started finding his confidence by being around a welcoming group of rippers, coaches, counselors, and diggers who would make sure you gave respect to your elders and followed the rules to a “T.” I learned this respect and hierarchy was necessary in order for operations to flow in the rhythmic form that provides elevated experiences and keeps us coming back.  

I love snowboarding because its a way to paint your artistic creations on the mountain, parks, and halfpipes.   I think the reason a lot of us stay in the industry is because we are afforded the opportunity to pass on this wisdom to the younger generations. We get share our love with other mountain enthusiasts who’s moment to moment experience is heightened by a path augmented by snowboarding.  

I am so grateful to have heard of Mt. Hood from a young age and that I get to continue to bring the biggest smiles to young and older faces.  I get the same feeling from teaching a first turn, a first 180, a first flip, or a first anything. That is who we are. That is who I am: forever grateful to have snowboarding and this amazing community in my life! 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 25, 2020

Mt. Hood, Oregon – Wy’East Mountain Academy is one of the world’s only snowboard, ski, and skateboard high schools and is known for producing its fair share of Olympic medalists. Each April, students and families gather for Wy’East’s annual graduation ceremonies at the historic Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, which is a designated “potentially active” volcano by the U.S. Geological Survey and happens to be the second most climbed mountain in the world. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, students, staff, and families have instead gathered around their computers today to participate in one of the nation’s first online high school graduation ceremonies.

With the school year cut short, students quickly adapted from skateparks and ski slopes to wrapping up the year studying and training at home through personalized online coaching and athletics. Students connected with their academic advisors, coaches, and peers daily via the video conferencing app, Zoom, where they shared videos of their at-home or local gym workouts, new skateboard and trampoline tricks, and presented projects for new skateboard and terrain park designs.

Under normal circumstances, the school's summer term would begin on May 11th with students earning extra credits while skiing and snowboarding through the summer months on Mt. Hood’s year-round natural snow pack. In this new era students will be returning to a program Wy’East calls their “Mobile Semester,” which expands on the virtual experience the school moved to this spring.

“It’s all about making lemonade out of lemons,” commented Kevin English, the academy’s president. “Fortunately, our school has been dedicated to the online education model for over a decade so adapting to the current global environment was easy. The current situation not only forced us to accelerate our academic and athletic performance, but to also prioritize our students to continue to feel connected to each other, the school, the culture, and the sports they love so much.” 

Minus a frozen screen or two, the virtual graduation went off without a hitch featuring all the traditional pomp and circumstance to be expected: faculty welcomes, accomplished alumni keynotes (Olympic bronze medalist Alex Beaulieu-Marchand), contemplative student speeches, a turning of the tassels and a toss of the mortarboards all within the confines of home.  

About Wy’East Mountain Academy

Founded in 2009, Wy’East Mountain Academy is an action sports-focused academic boarding school that has produced countless noteworthy and successful alumni including Olympic and X-Games medalists. Designed and directed in partnership with its staff of globally renowned coaches and academic professionals, Wy’East Mountain Academy is for students grades 7-12 who have a passion for skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking and skateboarding, and for those who simply aspire to experience the great outdoors. 

Press Contact

Dan Tattersfield, Director of Admissions

dan@wyeastacademy.com

(503) 622-8931

Tag: virtual coaching, mobile learning, mobile semester, online learning, online education, skateboard high school, snowboard high school, ski high school, summer school, skateboard academy, snowboard academy, ski academy, action sports academy.

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