Different software
Alpbach (Tyrol) and Les Gets / Morzine (Portes du Soleil) kept coming up in our research. We are not building resort profiles for them this season — English instruction is not guaranteed, and we will not score a ski school we cannot verify. The Alps model is still worth understanding: multi-day ski-school blocks, free rentals often to age 12 (Alpbach publishes this), purpose-built pedestrian villages, and a culture that assumes children ski every morning for a week while adults disappear. That is not a two-hour U.S. group lesson with a 3:15 pickup mosh pit.
The cost and time question
A week in the Portes du Soleil can undercut a week at Beaver Creek once you count lessons and kids' lift tickets — and then you add the Atlantic, jet lag with a 5-year-old, and whether the instructor's English is 'lesson English' or actually English. East Coast families already flying to Utah should price both. West Coast families usually should not, unless the trip is the vacation and skiing is the excuse.
When we would go
Kids already ski, you can take a true week, you want a village without a car, and you have confirmed an English-speaking group in writing. When we would not: first-timers, toddlers who need licensed American-style daycare, or a four-day weekend you are trying to internationalize. If this guide gets used, individual resort pages can follow. Until a school confirms language and ratios, they stay off the Family Score list.