Grantee Spotlight: Crested Butte Community School
Crested Butte Community School (CBCS) ran two programs suppored by MetRec that together reached hundreds of students: an Enrichment Program offering 32 after-school clubs to more than 250 K-12 students, and a Recreation Program that subsidizes ski and swim lessons for roughly 320 elementary students.
Enrichment Program After School Clubs
The Enrichment Program, directed by Special Programs Coordinator Jill van Tiel, has run after-school clubs at CBCS since 2001. Throughout the 2025-26 school year, 32 clubs logged 4,544 student-user hours and benefited more than 500 parents whose children were kept in safe activities after school. All elementary students in the school’s Free & Reduced lunch program took part.
Demand outpaces supply: the clubs fill within hours, and every session carries a waiting list. The clubs also help working parents who can’t pick up children when school ends at 3:30 p.m..
Recreation Programming: Ski, Swim for PE
CBCS also received grant funding for its Recreation Program, which helps roughly 320 K-5 students participate in Ski for PE, Nordic Ski and Swim for PE instruction.
Grant funds enabled CBCS to lower the alpine ski program’s cost to $100 per student last year, down from $125. With the price drop, the school saw nearly 100% participation, up from 90-95% opt-out rates tied to cost.
Chip Wiegand, who ran the program, described the value in relational terms: kids who aren’t confident in the classroom “get out on the ski hill and that’s totally their jam,” building friendships that carry into recess and lunch.
Swim for PE, now in its fourth year, sends kindergartners and first-graders to the Gunnison pool for three lessons each, teaching basic water safety: floating, holding their breath, jumping in and swimming to the wall.
Kindergarten Teacher Dana Wiegand, who coordinates the swim program, said students advance so quickly. She recalled a student who had never put her head underwater before the lessons and was doing so by her third session.
“It takes the barrier away of parents having to get their kids down to swimming,” she said, noting families from the north end of the valley face a long drive to the pool.
“I really want to stress how beloved these programs are in the community,” Chip Wiegand said. “Every single person I talk to loves it.”
Photos courtesy of CBCS.
