LTUSD on verge of creating winter sports academy
By Kathryn Reed
Prom, football games, hanging with friends, a diploma. In part, that’s what high school is all about.
But in Lake Tahoe, where some of the world’s best skiers and snowboarders call home, they don’t have those high school memories because they were on the slopes more than they were in the classroom. And some leave town to be able to get the training and education they want. That all might change for the next generation of Olympians and X Games competitors who hail from the South Shore.
On Tuesday night, the Lake Tahoe Unified School District board of education will have a one-hour study session about creating the South Lake Tahoe Mountain Sports Academy, with a vote to be taken later that night.
LTUSD expects to partner with Sierra-at-Tahoe, and Tahoe Sports and Entertainment, owners of the South Lake Tahoe Ice Rink.
(Board member Judy Cefalu won’t be able to vote because her son, Chris Cefalu, is president of Tahoe Sports and Entertainment.)
The idea would be to create a schedule for students where they are at South Tahoe High School in the morning and on the slopes or ice in the afternoon.
“We have had to send a few of our alpine racers to Sugar Bowl to balance their education,” John Rice, general manager at Sierra, told Lake Tahoe News. This program would keep them on the South Shore.
Sugar Bowl is the closest academy, with one near Vail and others on the East Coast.
Sierra has a proven history of turning out world-class athletes – Travis Cabral, Travis Ramos, and Jamie and Joanie Anderson, to name a few.
Moving, ditching classes or home schooling are the choices skiers and snowboarders have today.
Maddie Bowman, who will lead the Pledge of Alliance at the March 27 meeting, is the rare exception of being a world-class athlete (silver in the superpipe at this year’s Winter X Games and second overall in the Dew Tour rankings) and skiing for the high school team.
LTUSD Superintendent Jim Tarwater said parents and students for years have been asking for an academy.
“The timing is right. We have the strong educational facilities,” Tarwater said in reference to the infrastructure and associated programs that have come with the 2008-voter approved Measure G.
The academy, which could be running by the start of the 2012-13 school year, would come under the district’s alternative education program. Amy Jackson would likely be the counselor for the students. Between 20 and 30 kids are expected to enroll initially, with it growing from there.
It’s anticipated students from the West Slope and Sacramento area may also be initial registrants. The district does not foresee getting into the business of housing academy kids.
While the cost of the programs is not finalized, the district will neither make money nor incur additional costs. But it will realize average daily attendance dollars – the way California schools receive money from the state.
Rice expects the ski-snowboard program to cost less than $10,000 per year. Tarwater said the hockey academy will be closer to $15,000. (Neither Chris Cefalu nor Van Oleson of TSE returned a phone call.)
Incorporated into the fee will be the cost of busing students to their training locations and back.
Rice provided the following rough schedule for student-athletes:
Fall: September-November (first quarter)
Conditioning begins school calendar year
Baseline physical condition test (possibly tie into sports medicine component that will open at STHS in fall 2013)
Winter: December-January (second quarter)
Daily on mountain training
Events as qualified and registered
Spring: January-March (third quarter)
Daily on mountain training
Events, competition
Summer: March-June (fourth quarter) (resort closes mid-April)
School sports medicine lab, media
End of season progress report, summer training plan
Voluntary participation: social events, soccer, volleyball, beach days.
Tarwater said by breaking the academy into quarters it will mean being able to compress some of the academics during the time when the slopes are bare.
Another component could be to integrate various aspects of the high school curriculum into the academy – for instance having students interested in digital media film the racers and tying in sports medicine classes.
Rice envisions working with Lake Tahoe Community College on backcountry awareness for academy students. He also anticipates this type of academy helping athletes secure scholarships to compete at the college level.
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Meeting info: Study session about the proposed academy begins at 5pm March 27. A vote on the proposal is farther down on the agenda. The meeting is at the district office on Al Tahoe Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe.
This sounds like something which should be part of LTCC not High School.
The academy is targeting High school students and LTUSD needs the daily attendance dollars from the state-sounds like a win win for everyone.
While the cost of the programs is not finalized, the district will neither make money nor incur additional costs. But it will realize average daily attendance dollars – the way California schools receive money from the state.
Rice expects the ski-snowboard program to cost less than $10,000 per year. Tarwater said the hockey academy will be closer to $15,000.
Is it publicaly or privately funded?
The article seems to say both.
What a fantastic idea! Athletes train in middle & high school, and are serious competitors by college. Ultimately, the academy could expand to middle school. This is the type of exciting program that can help polish the SLT image and give it star status.
I thought the idea behind going to school was to get a quality education, not to allow someone half a day to practice their sport of choice. My son played Football and Baseball plus worked at a job during High Scool here in So. Tahoe, now is a Junior at Marietta College in Ohio with a double Major of Math & Chemistry plus is getting ready for Spring Football where he is battling for the starting QB job next fall and doing all of that with a 3.6 gpa. How often other than Hockey due we hear about Olympic or X-Games competitors with College degrees.
Also will the Seniors have to have a Senior Project like all the rest of our kids have to have to graduate?
A special school for 20-30 kids come on LTUSD if a kid is that good at any sport they can get a scholarship.
A tax funded high school is supposed to educate students not train athletes.
We have many students now who compete in winter sports that cannot attend a normal school day due to the events in other states (and beyond). I think the academy is a great idea because these athletes that cannot attend school can still get an education.
Kids that play football, basketball and other traditional school sports have their team practices and games in their own district. There are sports that require the students to have practices and competitions more than a day’s drive away.
They deserve the chance to learn and get their diplomas and shouldn’t be penalized because of the sport they excel in. Funny how you all root for the Lindsay Vonns and Jamie Andersons of the world, but don’t think of what they’ve had to miss school wise to get where they are.