BIG WHITE, B.C. -- At some schools, students pull up to a bike rack before heading into class.

At the Big White Community School, there's a ski rack where skis and snowboards hang until their owners retrieve them at the end of the school day.

And that end comes early -- 1:20 p.m. to be precise -- leaving enough time for a daylight game of hockey on the open-air rink a short walk from the school, or to catch a chairlift before the runs close at the ski resort, located about 60 kilometres from Kelowna in B.C.'s Okanagan Valley.

"The [school] days get shortened as the ski year progresses, so that means you can ski through the afternoon," says Cody Holtam, 17, who has attended the school since he was in Grade 5, pulling up on his skis many days.

Like other students, Cody lives with his family in the village, a cluster of hotels, condominiums and shops that can accommodate as many as 15,000 guests and is the ski-season home to roughly 1,500 full-time residents, most of them resort employees.

As of January, there were 37 students enrolled -- a mix of children who return year after year and newcomers whose parents have come to the ski village to work or for an extended vacation. They hail from the United States, England and as far away as Australia.

Inside the school -- at 1,580 metres above sea level, it's the highest school in Canada -- students are split into primary and secondary classrooms, where children of different ages and grades work side by side in a wired version of the country school.

Secondary students are assigned laptop computers, which are used to complete assignments and transmit course material. A computer lab provides high-speed Internet access. Two full-time teachers roam among the students, getting the day's work under way and monitoring students' progress.

"You're more facilitating than anything -- there's very little in-front-of-the-class teaching time," says David Reimer, 29, who teaches Grades 6 to 11.

The setup encourages co-operation.

One recent morning in the primary classroom, nine-year-old Mica Bot was teamed with reading buddy Violet Johansen, 6.

"It's nice because you get to learn a lot and you learn stuff from them," said Mica, who is in Grade 4. "Like how to read, because you can see how they're doing it."

The school, operating since 1996 and in its current location since the fall of 2005, reflects tenacious efforts by a group of parents at Big White, who lobbied for a full-time school to help retain resort staff and build community ties.

"Big White was hiring staff, but they were leaving as soon as their kids hit school," says Diana Ballingall, whose husband is an executive with the company that owns the resort and whose two sons attend the school.

Kelowna, with about 100,000 people, has public schools, but the commute can be time-consuming and expensive, not to mention treacherous in winter. And Big White does not fall into the same school district as Kelowna -- it lies in the Boundary School District, which takes in small towns such as Midway and Rock Creek. So the regional school board was familiar with the needs of small communities. But the Big White parents had to demonstrate there was a need for the school.

For the first year, fundraising was required to pay for materials and a teacher's salary. Once accredited by the province in 1998, the school was eligible for provincial funding. Classes took place in a former medical clinic and, as enrolment grew, in space once used for a ski-rental shop.

Since 2005, students have been attending a new schoolhouse, which includes two classrooms, administrative space and a combined library-computer lab.

The resort's owners, Schumann Resorts Ltd., a family venture that also owns the nearby Silver Star resort, donated property, utilities and funds worth more than $1-million toward the new facility.

There have been growing pains, mostly as the result of unpredictable enrolment. Some students attend the school year-round, others for only the ski season.

The new calendar year typically sees an influx of new students: Mr. Reimer started the school year with 11 students; as of this week, he's got 18.

He's not worried about how the newcomers will fit in. "The kids who live up here all the time are used to people coming and going, so they're really welcoming."

The Big White school operates on a four-day week, as do the other schools in the Boundary School District, and adjusts its hours to adapt to the rhythms of the ski resort.

Beginning in January, school starts earlier, at 8:30 a.m., and gets out earlier, at 1:20 p.m., with a 30-minute break for lunch. Students follow the regular provincial curriculum. B.C. residents do not pay school fees, but out-of-province and foreign students pay $600 a month, a fee that is under review as administrators wrestle with the issue of fluctuating enrolment.

Students tend to work well together and are used to independent study, says Mr. Reimer, himself a keen snowboarder.

One recent Monday afternoon, Cody Holtam and his sole Grade 11 classmate, Jeff Lofquist, were in the computer lab, working on assignments that they'd managed to neglect for three days.

The boys, all lanky limbs and horseplay, were groaning in mock despair as Debbie Melnychuk -- whose two sons attend the school and whose many roles at the school include custodian and study coach -- was listing the senior students' study responsibilities on a "contract" that included completion dates.

"You guys have fire practice tonight; it's not as if you have all the time in the world," Ms. Melnychuk said.

The two students, it turns out, are not only the senior pupils in the school, they also volunteer with the community fire brigade, a responsibility that means they sometimes wear their beepers to class.

The pair, who will be the school's first graduates if they complete Grade 12 at Big White next year, say they don't mind rubbing shoulders with younger children.

"They're fine, they look up to us a little bit," Mr. Lofquist says.

Parents say the school has helped them balance resort jobs with family life, although some fret that older children in particular might have more social, sports and academic options in a bigger centre. Some families plan to move to Kelowna when their children get older.

Meanwhile, the kids are kids, with some saying that the school is "boring," others that it's cool and still others giving a mumbled "okay" as they shoulder gear for Monday afternoon hockey.

Curtis Rollie, 13, is one of three Grade 8 students. Now in his fourth year at the school, Curtis is walking over to the skating rink when he stops to chat.

"It's really small, so you don't have a lot of friends to choose from," he says. "But that means you have to be friends with everybody."