Letter: County Should Manage Indoor Pools, Not Schools

In 2006 voters authorized Prince William County to issue $11 million in bonds to make improvements to park facilities in the county. Among the improvements residents wanted was an expansion of the swimming lanes at the Chinn Center. The expansion never happened, nor did any of the other promised improvements. The county reportedly issued the bonds in 2011, and has reportedly begun spending that money on other improvements to park facilities in the county.

We’re seven years past 2006 and our indoor swimming facilities are even more inadequate than they were then. School age children routinely swim at 4:30 in the morning to get practice in before school starts. Swimming lessons fill up within days of being announced. Pool space in the evening for recreation is next to impossible to find.

Clubs and swim teams have to put six to eight swimmers, or more, in a lane at a time for practice because the lanes simply aren’t available. Many clubs have been forced to turn interested children away from their leagues because they don’t have the space for them.

We needed additional swimming facilities in 2006 and we need them even more now. Unfortunately the county’s plan for filling that need is to do nothing. 

In response to the crisis in indoor swimming facilities, Prince William County Public Schools plans to build a two pool aquatics complex at the 12th high school, which will open in the Fall of 2016. The aquatics complex is projected to cost $10.5 million to build with annual operating and debt service expenses of approximately $1 million – $1.5 million. School division staff expect that public usage fees will cover the complex’s operating expenses, but not the debt service expense which will be $723,000 a year, on average, for 20 years.

The pool’s expenses will be paid for with money PWCS receives from PWC in their allocation of tax receipts — money that would otherwise be used in classrooms will be diverted to pay for the pool.

As the recession has drug on longer than anyone expected, funding for our schools hasn’t increased enough to provide for school operations. To balance the budget the school division has cut programs and increased class sizes to the state maximum.

PWCS has some of the largest class sizes in the state. Some math classes have 35 students in them with one teacher. Many classrooms have 38 – 40 students in them. Science labs have become difficult to impossible to safely complete as there isn’t enough lab equipment for each student to participate.

The state recommends one compliance officer per 1,000 special needs students; PWCS has one compliance officer for 3,300 special needs students. Programs like Learn and Serve and Art, and elementary science lab teachers have been cut because the schools don’t have the resources to provide them.

Some of our BOCS members openly support the pool. BOCS Chairman Corey Stewart has stated that he will spend his summer drumming up support for the school pool. What Chairman Stewart hasn’t said is why he believes the school division should be responsible for providing the pools and not the county through parks and recreation.

PWC Parks and Recreation currently operates indoor pools in two recreation centers in the county. They have systems that are designed to schedule and organize classes for programs that county residents want. They have staff that are trained to maintain pools, manage staff, supervise lifeguards, and recruit and supervise qualified instructors. Adding one more indoor pool complex wouldn’t be that much of a stretch for county parks and recreation. They could open and operate another complex that meets the needs of the entire community with relative ease.

The school division, on the other hand, hasn’t operated an indoor pool since the pool at Independent Hill was closed. They’ll have to figure out what classes people want, figure out what staff are needed to run those classes, recruit and train that staff and verify that the staff they recruit can work with children in a public school.

They’ll need to learn what sort of maintenance is needed on indoor pools and will have to hire qualified, cleared people to maintain the pool. They’ll have to purchase systems for scheduling and organizing classes. They’ll have to hire experienced pool managers, recruit and train qualified lifeguards, hire pool maintenance workers, and recruit and train qualified instructors- and that’s just the beginning.

Because the pool will be a school division asset, the programs they offer will be geared towards meeting the needs of the school division, not the community as a whole. Just like private clubs and recreation leagues are prohibited from using high school football and baseball fields, private swim clubs could be prohibited from using the school division’s pool complex.

To me the answer is clear. The community as a whole wants additional indoor swimming facilities. We’ve wanted them for years. But it’s the community as a whole that wants additional indoor swim facilities, not just high school swim teams. Because parks and recreation’s purpose is to provide recreation facilities for the community as a whole, then this pool complex should be controlled and paid for by the county through parks and recreation.

Chairman Stewart says he supports the school pool. I believe he ought to explain to the public why he believes the communities needs would be better met if the school division controlled the pool complex rather than parks and recreation.

Some of our BOCS members have said that the school division can do whatever it wants with its money. They’ve said that they don’t have the authority to tell the school division what it can and can not do, and have refused to express any opinion on the issue.

They are correct – they don’t have the authority to tell the school division that it can’t build a pool complex. However, they do have the authority to direct county staff to negotiate with the school division to have the pool complex operated and paid for by parks and recreation. That will only happen if our BOCS members actually express an opinion and direct county parks and recreation staff to do so.

It’s time for our elected leaders on the BOCS to lead.

Kim Simmons lives in Bristow, Va.