Glenwood Springs’ Two Rivers Community School offers skateboarding program

A list of words — diversity, courage, compassion, creativity, friendship, confidence, perseverance, love and acceptance — hang on a bulletin board in Kevin White’s fifth-grade classroom at Two Rivers Community School. 

These words are all lessons White learned from his favorite teacher, and ones he now seeks to pass on to his students. 

His favorite teacher, however, is not a person. It’s his skateboard. 

Since White began skateboarding 40 years ago, he has seen first hand the profound impact that skateboarding can have beyond the sport. White started the Ollie Club, a skateboarding program for Two Rivers Community School students, to share his love of skateboarding with the next generation. 

“I try to pass those values on to my students as a teacher, but also to my Ollie Club kids as skateboarders,” White said. 

The Ollie Club has been operating with a fall and spring session since fall 2024. Its most recent session, which ended Oct. 29, had 36 students enrolled in the program. 

Two Rivers Community School raised funds to purchase 20 skateboards, helmets, kneepads, elbowpads and wrist guards for students who do not have their own equipment. The program provides transportation to the Two Rivers Skatepark in Glenwood Springs. 

Students enrolled at Two Rivers Community School can participate in the program for free. 

The Ollie Club welcomes skateboarders of all levels, teaching students everything from how to stand on a skateboard to technical tricks. More advanced participants often help their greener peers progress, White said. 

“What’s really cool to see is that the kids who know how to skateboard, who have those skills under control, are more than willing to teach the skills to their peers and to pass that information along,” White said. 

Beyond pushing their skating to the next level, this peer-to-peer mentorship fosters relationships that might not develop otherwise.

“It’s created this really cool bond between students who may or may not communicate at school or any other place but in Ollie Club, and so it’s been super cool to watch that kind of mentorship come to be,” White said. 

The club’s coaches include parents, a teacher’s spouse and some of White’s friends who are “diehard skateboarders who love skateboarding and who want to pass that passion along,” White said. 

For White, the most rewarding part of the program is seeing skateboarding impact students in real time.

“Sometimes, specifically with the female students, they’re a little more shy, they’re a little more reserved,” White said. “I’ve watched them progress from being sort of inhibited on the skateboard to really progressing and gaining self-confidence and learning tricks, learning things that they never thought they would be able to do, and now they do them on a regular basis. Watching them gain that confidence has been probably the coolest thing that I’ve seen as far as Ollie Club goes.”

The program is currently only offered through Two Rivers Community School to enrolled students, although White hopes to eventually open the program to more students. 

The Ollie Club will return in the spring to continue nurturing students’ growth through the sport of skateboarding. 

“There’s nothing but support here,” White said.