The Collingwood-based National Ski Academy is opening its classrooms up to local Grade 11 and 12 students who want an alternative option for some of their high school credits.
The academy is a local private school that offers academic and athletic education and training to ski athletes. Lately, the school has branched out.
An equestrian athlete joined last year's graduating class, prompting the head of school, Tobin Walsh, and head of guidance, Heather Grant, to come up with an idea to offer academic programming to other students in the region who might benefit from an alternative schedule.
"Both Heather and I recognize that there's a need locally for students to be able to take courses outside of their own school," said Walsh, who stressed that National Ski Academy isn't trying to take students away from publicly funded schools, rather to offer some supplemental options for students who might want or need different timetables.
"There are some students who are either involved in a sport or an art or they have things in their lives that don't necessarily align with the traditional semester system and they might want to look at taking a course outside of that," said Walsh. "At a local secondary school, students might not be able to take all of the courses they're interested in (because of scheduling conflicts), so we're offering the opportunity for students to be able to take either a single course with us or do a block of classes with us."
National Ski Academy operates on a quadmester system, so courses are offered and completed four times a year instead of twice a year as they are at local public and Catholic high schools.
The quadmesters are built around the ski training schedule. All courses are credited by the Ministry of Education and the school gets a ministry inspection every two years. Each course is 110 hours, as required by the province.
The summer quadmester is the most intense with a Grade 11 University English course running Aug. 12 to Aug. 30. The course is online, but taught live.
The rest of the quads run 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. every weeknight in-person at the academy on Oak and Third Street with the fall block starting Sept. 30 and ending Nov. 26, the winter block starting Jan. 6 and ending mid-March, and the spring block running early April to mid-June. Courses will include Grade 11 and 12 maths, sciences, French and art.
The cost is $1,000 per course.
Grant foresees three different types of student benefiting from the academy classes.
"Kids can come to us through traditional skiing and choose the full ski training, coaching, academics, this is their school," said Grant. "The second student would be a student at a local school who's looking to get a credit, maybe they want a smaller class size ... or they weren't able to get into a certain specific course because of the scheduling ... the third student would be a student who is committed to another sport .... or somebody that's heavily involved in an artistic program who needs a bit more flexibility with their schooling because it's really hard in a traditional school to pursue outside activity at an intensive high level."
Class sizes are capped at about a dozen students and the teachers have one, maybe two, classes at a time.
The National Ski Academy is a registered charity that has been incorporated since 1986 and it has been a ministry-inspected school since 2009. Formerly, the academy students attended Collingwood Collegiate Institute, but the academy now offers its athletes a full academic program on top of training and boarding.
"We realized that we could open our doors and not be exclusively for skiers and provide a great alternative, and almost an add-on, to what the public schools offer," said Grant.
While the expansion is new, Walsh hopes that as it continues there might one day be a bursary for local students to help support them if they need an alternative course option.
Walsh said the expanded programming is one of several ways the academy is looking at generating revenue for their business model.
"I think it's important to really work in closer partnership with the community," said Walsh, acknowledging that many people don't know the massive heritage home on the corner of Oak and Third Street is a school.
The Special Olympics Alpine Ski Team will be using the academy's gym again this fall and the school building will be part of the Doors Open Simcoe County heritage building tours also in the fall.
"I think this is just a natural progression to putting ourselves out in the community a little bit more and opening our doors," said Walsh.
For more information about the academy and the Grade 11 and 12 courses available, visit their website at www.nsa.on.ca/academics/.
