Stowe Reporter
August 18, 2005
by Marina Gisquet
Mt. Mansfield Academy Prepares for a Big Step
The Mt. Mansfield Winter Academy is about to step into the future if all goes as planned.
Plans to acquire the Two Dog Lodge on the Mountain Road, as discussed at Tuesday's Stowe Development Review Board meeting, will not only put the school on par with other ski racing and snowboard academies in New England, but it will also allow the school to expand its programs.
Moving to a new location is key, said Lori Furrer, director of the academy, because "the No. 1 complaint we get from parents is about the facility."
Currently, Mt. Mansfield's Winter Academy rents four floors of Foster's Place, where 40-plus winter-term ski racers and snowboarders come for the season to train and compete. The students bring work from their home schools - to which they'll return in the spring - and are tutored in classrooms on the second floor. They eat and gather on the first floor, where they also tune their skis and boards and they sleep on the third and fourth floors.
Sounds fine, but the shabby building is a hard sell to parents who envision leaving their children there all winter. In addition, the school has run out of space, and rented quarters mean a certain lack of independence and insecure fixed costs.
Moving would allow the academy to look more like a school - better dorm rooms for students, a separate building for art and equipment tuning, and nicer classrooms - and it would give the winter academy the chance to become a year-round hub of activity.
Along with the winter academic program, which runs from November to the end of March, Furrer wants to incorporate summer language immersion programs, two-week SAT preparation classes and community service "camps."
"We need a better home for the winter academy, but it would also allow us to offshoot all these other programs," Furrer said, as well as bring in revenue year-round, not just during the winter.
She likes the idea of the language immersion programs, because "kids learn language in school, but have little opportunity to speak it outside the classroom."
Furrer also wants to work with local organizations to do good in the community.
For instance, "we would help with Conservation Corps projects, and run reading programs for kids in Lamoille County who are struggling," Furrer said. "The possibilities are endless if we can make this step."
The school's origins date from 1982, when two coaches at the Mt. Mansfield Ski Club found themselves working with a handful of talented young ski racers. For the athletes to compete and get high-quality training, the traditional school mold had to be broken. So, they took their work from Stowe High School, skied in the mornings, were tutored in the afternoons, and on weekends they traveled to competitions around New England and the rest of the country.
"In the beginning it was tough. We had seven students and we rented three classrooms that had no heat," Furrer said.
A few years later, the school was run out of the basement of Stowe Community Church, and eventually the Mt. Mansfield Winter Academy moved to Foster's Place.
"At one point, I said we would be no bigger than 20 students. Now we have 46," Furrer said.
Not only has the winter academy produced ski racers - among them Jim Cochran and Jessica Kelley of the U.S. Ski Team and snowboarder Jake Blauvelt, a 2004 U.S. Open winner - but it also has an impressive list of college acceptances.
Last year, ten students graduated from the academy and went on to schools such as Middlebury, Williams, Dartmouth, Colby, St. Lawrence, and Colorado College.
"Our kids don't get recruited for one sport; colleges want them for two," Furrer said.
Take Amy Cochran, a member of the best NCAA ski team in the country; she is also one of the stars of the University of Vermont soccer team.
"That's our history. Our students don't have to give up another interest they have to be a ski racer or snowboarder," Furrer said.