Home - Vail Mountain School

OUR MISSION

BUILD COMMUNITY
SEEK KNOWLEDGE
DEVELOP CHARACTER

Our Location

Our location is truly unique

Our community works and plays together, sharing a love for the active mountain lifestyle that defines us and that has converted countless visitors into lifelong residents. Our location is truly unique, enabling us to provide an education that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Our beautiful, purpose built facility is designed to parallel and support our curriculum. It feels less like a school, more like a home. Outside our front door lies the world-famous Vail ski resort. Just steps from our back door are trails that lead to majestic 13,000 foot peaks, mountain meadows filled with wildflowers, pristine waterfalls, and diverse ecosystems. Interstate 70 provides quick access to the learning opportunities of Denver and Boulder and the sublime desert playgrounds and rivers to the west.

Our Community

A caring community of engaged learners

Operating on the principle that emotional stability is a requisite for academic success, students start each day at VMS with Homebase, a unique advisory forum designed to build community, strengthen character, and encourage ethical decision making. In partnership with parents, teachers help students confront problems, and set positive, proactive examples, challenging students to be their best in the classroom, on the playing field, online, and outside the school. We pride ourselves on celebrating individual achievements and supporting each other's struggles. The result is a caring community of engaged learners that supports the greatness in one through the strength of many.

Our Faculty

Inspiring a true love of learning

To achieve our Mission, faculty at VMS are singularly focused on one thing--your child. They bring their passions into the classroom and develop deep, caring relationships that inspire a true love of learning. Our teachers pay close attention to the social, emotional and academic needs of each individual, adapting curricula and lessons that fuel the fire more than fill the bucket. Put simply, a good school knows your child by name, a great school knows your child by heart.

Our Curriculum

Teachable moments everywhere

VMS is the only state and nationally accredited independent K-12 school in Eagle and Summit Counties and we embrace the freedom this provides. Our rigorous, globally inspired, college preparatory curriculum readies students for challenges both in and out of the classroom. The experience is enriched by athletics, independent projects, service learning, in-depth intraterm classes, winter hut trips, outdoor education, and Ski Fridays. We believe teachable moments are everywhere and we are bound neither by belief nor government mandate to teach in only one way. One size does not fit all, one size fits one.

68%

Participate in Organized Athletics

1962

Year Founded

11

Acre Campus, 5 miles from Vail Town Center

8:1

Student/Faculty Ratio

26%

Receive Tuition Assistance

13

Advanced Placement Courses

100%

Acceptance to a Four Year College

25

Arts Performances and Events Each Year

“We are at VMS because our kids are thriving in every way. They have strong social relationships with peers and teachers, and are confident when speaking with adults. They are succeeding academically, are inspired to learn, and take pride in their work.”

Upper School Parent