Raiders Express Update (Updated December 21, 2023)

Raiders Express Update

Due to the state of Minnesota observing Juneteenth as a state holiday, we are unable to have Raiders Express on Wednesday, June 19th. All school district facilities will be closed. Once again, there is no Raiders Express on Wednesday, June 19th.

Raiders Express schedules will be available below once registration is complete.

Please make sure all athletes have a water bottle of their own to use while at Raiders Express.

We will be meeting at the High School Weight Room for all sessions and ages during the 2023 summer. Raiders Express will run from June 10th - July 25th with the week of June 29th -  July 5th being a no contact week. The specific dates the program will run are the weeks of June 10th-13th, June 17th-20th, June 24th-27th, July 8th-11th, July 15th-18th and July 22nd-25th. This will give us 6 Weeks of training. Training will take place on Monday - Thursday each week. Each high school athlete will be scheduled into a group and will be scheduled to attend 4 days each week (Monday-Thursday). Middle school athletes will be scheduled into a group and will be scheduled for 2 days each week (Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday). Some athletes may choose to only come on certain days (example: A high school athlete may choose to attend only 2 or 3 days during the week) and that is ok.

Please take the time to read all of the information listed below.

The schedules for the summer Raiders Express Program will be listed below.  They will be organized based on the time each student-athlete is scheduled to attend.  The High School schedule is on the left and the Middle School schedule is on the right.  The program will run during the weeks of June 10th-13th, June 17th-20th, June 24th-27th, July 8th-11th, July 15th-18th and July 22nd-25th.

We have done our best to meet any scheduling requests so that kids can participate in as many activities as possible during the summer. If there is absolutely no way the scheduled time will work you can email Jason Koch (jkoch@isd200.org) and we will try to make something work.

The time of the first session will depend on the number of athletes that register, either a 7:00AM or 8:00AM session in the morning. Last year we started the first session at 8:00AM due to lower numbers. Additionally, we had a large number of middle school girls last year. The group is generally big, but we will be splitting them into 2 groups for the strength training portion in order to make it work well.

Raiders Express is a summer program for student-athletes focused on the development of functional strength, speed, agility, balance, coordination, flexibility, self-esteem & confidence.   Raiders Express is offered to all students that will be entering grades 6-12 at the end of summer (current grades 5-11 when registration takes place), regardless of gender or ability.    

Training sessions consist of a warm up, a lifting period, a running period, and a cool down.  Workouts are tailored to age and experience.  Lifting phase consists of a comprehensive, structured program designed with multiple sport athletes in mind – at the top end, the program incorporates explosive, Olympic lifts and targets lower body, upper body, and core exercises.  Speed and conditioning phase incorporates a varied approach including (but not limited to) resistance training, over-speed training, speed endurance and agility drills.  The goal is simple: to help each athlete develop the skills to reach their maximum potential!

Training sessions are held at the high school (weight room, gym and athletic fields) and run for 6 weeks during June and July, with 24 total sessions for high school students and 12 total sessions for middle school students. High school athletes attend 4x per week (M-T-W-Th) while middle School athletes attend 2x per week (M-W or T-Th). Students are grouped by age, grade, and often gender in order to prepare developmentally appropriate sessions.  

Registration will begin when spring sports registration opens on Monday, February 12th and close Friday, May 24th at 12:00pm (noon). Registration is done online through Affinety, just like sports registrations  (Click on the Registration tab on the toolbar above to learn more about Affinety).  The last day to register will  be May 24th. Training schedules for the summer will be posted 1 week before the start of the program.  A current physical must be on file (you will not be able to register if a physical will not remain current throughout the entire summer), and there is a $150 participation fee for the high school program, and $60 participation fee for the middle school program.    A family discount is available: families with 2 or more children registered for the program will pay a maximum of $225.00. The total amount due even if it is over $225.00 must be paid at the time of registration. If the total paid is over $225.00, you will need to email the High School Athletic Office at jkranz@isd200.org or call 651-480-7597 to receive a refund for amount paid over the $220.00 maximum. Refunds are prorated in the case of injury only. 

At this time we plan to run the schedule for Raiders Express in the same way we had for several years. The tentative schedule (based on numbers we have had from the past) for this summer is as follows:

8am - High School Girls that do not play Hockey Last year we did not have enough girls to have both a 7:00am and 8:00am session for girls. If we have more registrations this year we will go back to having both a 7:00am session and an 8:00am session for the girls

9am - High School Football players (except 9th graders)

10am - High School Hockey players (both boys and girls)

11am - High School Boys (including 9th grade football)

12pm - Middle School (M-W and T-Th will be boys)

1pm - Middle School (M-W will be mostly boys hockey players, T-Th will be girls)

Questions should be directed to Jason Koch (jkoch@isd200.org)(Only email questions about the program to the listed email addresses.  If you have scheduling requests, please follow the directions listed below.)

STAFF INCLUDES:

Registration is done online up until the deadline date each year.  If, for some reason, you are not able to complete the registration online through the athletic website, you can print and fill out the Late Registration Form.  Each student-athlete still needs to have a current physical on file and cannot participate until verification of a current physical occurs. There is a $20 late fee for each student registering after the deadline date.