Winter Sports School celebrates increasing enrollment with campus relocation


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PARK CITY — While most students attending traditional school are in a classroom at this time of year, Jacob Hunsaker was at Park City Mountain Ski Resort Saturday perfecting his latest trick.

“I focus on the slopestyle — the jumps and the rails — that’s what I like to focus on. That’s what’s most fun for me,” Hunsaker said.

He is one of several elite athletes on Team Utah Snowboarding that attend the Winter Sports School in Park City.

“We go to the school from April to November, instead of a traditional school schedule, so that we have the winter months off to train for whatever sport — from luge to snowboarding — we like to do,” Hunsaker said.

One thing many Utah Olympic athletes have in common is that they've attended the Winter Sports School in Park City. The school is now celebrating an increase in enrollment numbers with a move to a bigger campus.

Several big names have come from the Winter Sports School. Ted Ligety graduated in 2002 and just won his second Olympic gold medal, this time in giant slalom.

“It’s amazing,” Ligety said of his win. “It’s so cool to be standing up there listening to the national anthem and getting this (gold medal). It’s such a dream come true.”

Joss Christensen, a 2009 graduate, just won a gold medal in men’s slopestyle skiing; bobsledder Steve Holcomb, also a Winter Sports School alumnus, just won bronze in the two-man bobsled; and alumnus Andrew Weibrecht won a silver medal in the men’s super-giant slalom event.

“You take so much pride in them because they’re such good people,” said Dave Kaufman, headmaster of the Winter Sports School. “You want (the athletes) to do well not only because of their association with the school, but because they deserve it.”

In recent years, Kaufman’s school has been located in Utah Olympic Park. But now because of its success, with more than 150 winter athletes wanting to attend, the school is relocating to a bigger campus a few miles away.

“Next year we will be a public charter school,” the headmaster said. “So for Utah residents, at least there will be no more tuition; and so we’re growing.”

According to Kaufman, the Winter Sports School is the only charter or public school in Utah with a flipped schedule. Each year the enrolment numbers go up, he said, as winter sports gain popularity and winter athletes learn about schools like this.

For winter sports athletes like Miles Austin, a senior at the school, summer is for school. But right now, the mountain is his classroom — and perhaps his future.

“Personally, I would like to make it in the snowboarding,” Austin said. “The Olympics would be great; that’s what I’m shooting for.”

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