When Burke Edgar was in high school, he cut classes to skateboard with his friends.
Now the drawing and painting teacher at Wheat Ridge High School, Burke hopes to launch a program that will bring board sports into the classroom.
When Edgar was a student, he struggled to learn from textbooks and lectures.
“That was not a way I was able to connect,” Edgar said. “I really needed to be working with my hands and moving. I think the majority of students benefit from project-based learning.”
Out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Gone Boarding program offers an educational curriculum through the designing, building and riding of boards. Edgar hopes to bring the program to Wheat Ridge High School.
The program would give students the opportunity to manufacture skateboards, long boards, paddle boards, skis and snowboards in the 3,000-foot manufacturing space, currently used by the school’s STEM program.
Teegan Meyers is a first-year STEM teacher at the school and calls himself an “engineer at heart.”
Meyers is working alongside Edgar to bring the program to the school. He anticipates the Gone Boarding will attract a different population of students from those traditionally involved in STEM.
“Those students who don’t see any purpose in stepping into manufacturing and engineering, they’re going to have a cool, eye-opening experience of seeing the fun, hands-on portion of it,” Meyers said.
The three main goals Meyers and Edgar have for the program are bolstering enrollment through offering engaging, project-based curriculum, combining student passions with Career and Technical Education and offering access to outdoor activities for students who wouldn’t normally have that opportunity.
“We live so close to really amazing natural resources,” Edgar said. “There are so many kids in our area who don’t have transportation or equipment or access to them. That’s a big part of what this program trying to do is make them aware of the recreational opportunities that are so close by, and also give them a community of people to do it with—in school and out of school.”
The program welcomes students who aren’t already involved in board sports.
“You don’t really need to be a skateboarder to enjoy this class,” Edgar said. “The goal is to design an object you’re going to use.”
Bringing the Gone Boarding program to Wheat Ridge High School requires support from local partnerships and charitable grants. Organizations like First Push Syndicate, Board Pusher, Joy Ride Snowboards can donate their dead boards for students to try out. From that experiential knowledge students can decide which board they’d like to build.
With the Gone Boarding curriculum and the manufacturing space and tools already at Wheat Ridge High School, the program wouldn’t be a “ground floor investment” for the school, Edgar said. However funding for the program would have to come from outside the school budget.
Meyers and Edgar believe the program could work against the declining enrollment at the district and school levels.
“Declining enrollment is affecting all the schools in our district,” Edgar said. “It disproportionally affects smaller schools. This is a program that would be completely unique—not just to Jeffco but to the Front Range. No one else is doing a board manufacturing program.”
Edgar thinks about his son, who is interested in board sports and would be inclined to attend a school offering this program.
“Part of the battle that public schools are having right now is people just aren’t sending their kids to public schools anymore,” Meyers said. “Part of that is because they don’t see a lot of the positive opportunities that exist in school.”
Initially motivated by student interest in the program, Meyers and Edgar meet with a growing number of students during lunch who are interested in the program coming to their school. Recently students dressed up and presented about the program to the Kiwanis Club of Wheat Ridge before school.
Both Meyers and Edgar consider their efforts to launch this program their second job. Dedicating time on the weekends, after school and holidays, the teachers find it hard not to work on it.
“It’s a passion project because we both believe in the potential of it to be transformative for our school and our community,” Edgar said.
They are now “taking on all callers” for advisory board members and local connections in the manufacturing and board industries, Edgar said.
For donation information and future fundraising events, visit their website at wrhsgoneboarding.wixsite.com.
