Welcome Back to the 2026-2027 school year!
We were so excited to kick off the start of the school year with an incredible arrival day. The Week of Welcome gave all students and staff an opportunity to get to know each other and campus before getting to business in the classroom, residential activities, and training. All of our students were able to get baseline testing, both physical and concussion baseline testing, to help staff and parents know what the students will be building upon.
Even before the first day of class, the 26-27 school year was off to an amazing start with the ski and snowboard teams traveling down to Chile to compete in the South American Cup Series. They racked up an astonishing 1o medals!
We are so thrilled to be able to offer First Aid/CPR & AED certifications to all of our students. They are now all certified so they can help each other and others around them should an emergency arise.
Our Mountain Bike Team promptly ran up to British Columbia, Canada, where they started their season off with podiums at the Whip Off competition.
All of our students have been acclimatizing to life on campus, balancing out the rigorous schedule of training, studying, volunteer work, PSAT & SAT testing, and application to colleges around the world for our seniors. We look forward to seeing all of the parents on campus this Halloween for the 2026 Family Weekend!
Mike Hanley, Head of School
Student Life
We kicked off the school year with our Week of Welcome, giving students plenty of opportunities to get to know one another, build new friendships, and settle into life at Wy’East. Activities included a relay race, scavenger hunt, dodgeball, and even a rainy game of knockout basketball! Students also worked together to create roommate mottos and team names while participating in important orientations covering laundry, social media, medical support, culinary advice and healthy eating, and more.
We also kicked off our first two weekends with some exciting outdoor adventures, including whitewater rafting on the Deschutes River and bungee jumping in Amboy, Washington. Other weekend activities have included visits to the river and local farms, and giving students the opportunity to explore and enjoy the community around us.
On top of all of this, our Point Person program has officially begun! Through the program, each cabin is paired with a residential staff member who provides students with regular opportunities to connect with their peers, build healthy habits, and talk through challenges in a supportive environment. Weekly meetups may include group discussions, reflection activities, wellness and recovery sessions, and team-building exercises.
Our Gap Year students have officially begun volunteering with a local nonprofit, Oral Hull Foundation. Working alongside community leaders, our gap year students are supporting programming, maintaingin the Foundation’s 23-acre property, and completing projects that further its mission of promoting accessibility for people of all abilities. We are excited to see our students build meaningful relationships, contribute to their community, and gain hands-on experience through service at this incredible local property in Sandy every Monday.
Last, but certainly not least, we’ve welcomed a great group of students to our student government: Beau, Silvi, Joe, Tino, Atley, Lily, Luke, and Richie! Stay tuned to hear more news about our presidential debate and this year’s rail jam fundraiser.
It has been a busy and exciting start to the year, and we are ooking forward to all that is still to come!
Barbara and the Residential team
Academics
Welcome back to a new school year! The Academic Department is excited to begin another year of learning, growth, and new opportunities. The start of a school year is a chance for students to set goals, establish positive academic habits, and approach their coursework with curiosity and determination.
This year, we look forward to supporting each student as they work toward their individual academic goals and continue developing the skills they will need for success beyond the classroom. Whether students are beginning a new grade level, working toward graduation, or preparing for their next steps after Wy’East, we are committed to helping them make meaningful progress throughout the year.
We encourage all students to begin the year with a strong start, stay organized, ask questions, and take ownership of their learning. We are looking forward to a productive and successful school year and are excited to see all that our students will accomplish!
Heidi and Adam
Facilities
As summer ends, the facilities team takes full advantage of an empty campus. We like to make improvements where they are most necessary. We started with the staff house by removing the kitchen tile floor and updating it with new vinyl tile planks. Then we tore down the dry slope boarder cross course and used the material to upgrade the existing rail line features. After deconstruction of boarder cross, we graded the area for the potential of a new dry slope rail area with beginner lanes to advanced. Our concrete turnaround was completed and we have begun construction on the new firepit area in the center which will become a great hangout spot for evening activities or a great location to view the landing bag in use. I’m very excited to complete this area by thanksgiving. We’ve fully painted the exterior of all buildings and finished another cabin remodel complete with heated tile floors and walk in shower 6 out of 9 are now complete. The cafteteria deck is getting rebuilt as well. Students are back on campus now. Arrival day was wonderful and we will continue to listen for any maintenance requests and address them immediately.
Archer and Ethan
Athletics
It has been a great start to the school year. The snowboard and freeski teams both had great success with the pre-semester Chile trip and earned a bunch of podiums. Our Week of Welcome was spent getting to know the new academy students and staff, as well as setting the standard for the upcoming year with a high bar. Some of the concepts that we discussed with the students included time management, leading by example, a rising tide raises all ships, earned respect, and keeping campus spaces looking clean. We finished the week with physical testing at the Sandy stadium where we followed the US Ski & Snowboard SkillQuest Fitness Assessment which measures areas such as strength, power, agility, coordination, speed, aerobic fitness, and balance.
This week, coaches are reviewing and building individuated quad plans and annual plans. These will be shared with parents so that they can see the program plan for the year, as well as student weekly goal setting. We are super excited to see where the year takes us!
Mountain Bike
We’ve had a great start to the semester! Starting off with the Week of Welcome, students in the mountain bike program had the opportunity to mix it up with students in the ski and snowboard programs.
Right at the end of the first week, we rolled out for our first trip of the year to Red Mountain Resort in Rossland, B.C. for their closing weekend and whipoff event. Arlan join us on the trip as well so the students had the opportunity to get clips with him. Check out the Wy’East YouTube page to see the trip recap that Arlan put together. During whipoffs, Iyla, Liam, and Micah put down standout performances and Iyla and Micah both made it to the finals. Big congratulations to Iyla for taking the win in the event!
Since the trip, we’ve been on campus riding the backyard and working on goal setting for the year. This upcoming phase will be our time for progression leading up to our trip to Virgin, Utah.
I’m stoked on the progress that we’ve seen thus far and excited to see what the rest of the semester has in store for the team.
Kevin Simpers
FREESKI
September certainly flew by here at campus. We fired things off with the Week of Welcome, where each student go acquainted with one another as well as all the campus facilities. We focused on smaller groups blending students from different sports and grades for three days rotating through stations while going over all the rules and expectations at Wy’East. Stations of “learn to fall” or “lead arm concept” as well as school wide scavenger hunts, human knot and dodgeball to help promote school wide bonding. Week two began with a short hike to a nearby river beach spot and each student shared their personal goals with the team. We went over this year’s team expectations honing in on the 5 Love Principles which will be our teams values:
Showing Care
Respect
Knowledge
Integrity
Will to Cooperate
Each Monday, we start off with weekly personalized goal setting, having athletes not just write their goals, but explain how they will achieve them. Then, we break the team into two groups and balance every other day with half getting reps on the Banger Bag and the other half working on the tramps, rails, and small bag as well as a variety of strength, endurance, and core workouts. At the end of the week, they all go through their goal setting document and write down what they need to change to improve if they have yet to reach certain goals. The overall energy and team cohesion has been amazing. They are all super focus and determined to push their skiing to new heights.
Brian, Topher, Tayo, and Jackson
Snowboard
We’ve had a great start to the semester! Starting with Week of Welcome, the snowboard athletes had a chance to connect with students across the other programs while getting settled into campus life, learning expectations, and building some early team chemistry.
We also kicked off the year with a successful trip to Chile. The group competed in both slopestyle and big air events, and it was great to see everyone handle the travel, training, and competition environment well. Most importantly, everyone came home healthy, with more experience and a better understanding of what they want to work on moving forward.
Since then, we’ve been back on campus putting in a lot of work on the airbag, trampoline, dryslope rails, and skateboards. We’ve already seen athletes make some big breakthroughs, build confidence, and start to establish their goals for the season.
Our next phase is focused on continuing that progression, improving consistency, stamina, strength, and flexibility, and preparing for upcoming training opportunities later this fall and early winter.
We are really excited about the energy of this group and the progress we’re seeing already. It’s a fun crew to work with, and we’re looking forward to seeing what the rest of the semester brings.
Mike Ramirez, Griffin, and Jorja
Culinary
What a fast-paced month September has been for the Culinary Department! We welcomed new and returning students back and, in a blink, we are done with the first month. It has been great to get to know all the new students’ likes and dislikes regarding their food. We are busy trying to stay ahead of all the snacks these students eat in a day. Our first week, we made all the student’s favorite meal, Loco Moco’s! Kellen and Mark are creating great dinners each night they are working including Chinese night, curry night and BBQ pork sandwiches. In the mornings, I enjoy doing biscuits and gravy, fried eggs, hashbrowns, breakfast sandwiches and other breakfast entrees. The team is starting to gear up for Family Weekend coming up in a month! Hopefully, we will see you then.
Travis and Culinary team
