Controversy: Prince William looks at building a pool in 12th high school

Few, if any, would question the need for more swim lanes in Prince William County. Aaron Dean is the head coach of Occoquan Swimming, a year-round competitive swim team with 500 swimmers aged six through college.

Dean said, “We’re always looking for additional sites [for practice]. This fall, we can’t take on any additional swimmers. We’ve had to take away the entry level [ages 6 to 9] at some sites. That would have been their first competitive experience. We need to find more places. There’s a whole additional group of kids coming up that if we don’t get more pools won’t be able to participate.“Dean’s team currently utilizes pools at the Freedom Center, Chinn Park, Sharron Baucom Dale City Recreational Center and the KidsChoice complex in Occoquan.

Where the controversy lies is who should build and maintain the needed facilities. Currently, the Prince William County School Board is looking at an aquatics facility to be located at the school division’s twelfth high school, set to open in the fall of 2016. The board is split as to the advisability of the proposed facility.

“We have higher priorities,” said Gil Trenum, Brentsville representative to the school board. “We need to be funding class size reductions and competitive compensation for our staff. Here in Prince William County, the building and maintaining of swimming pools, especially for community recreation falls under the responsibility of parks and recreation. Each year, budgets get tighter and tighter, and we need to stay focused [on our mission].”

Milt Johns, school board chairman, is an advocate of the aquatics facility. “We have woefully inadequate facilities for swimmers,” he said, “both high school and community. Kids are getting up at three or four in the morning to try to get water time at places like Freedom Center, and they’re there late into the evening. It will also help with Title IX requirements, since there are more female than male swimmers. As a bonus, it gives us options for special education and will help with our underwater robotics program. Right now, those students don’t have any practice facilities.”

According to David Cline, associate superintendent for finance and support services, the design for the twelfth high school, which will be located near the intersection of Hoadly Road and Route 234, will be “the Patriot building, modified to add the aquatic facility. The fine and performing arts specialty program, currently located at Woodbridge Senior High School, will also move to the new school,” he said.

The facility will include two pools, a 116’ by 75’ competition pool with a moveable bulkhead to allow for lane and length requirements; and a 45’ by 75’ instructional pool with a walk-in entry depth, a swimming lessons area and possible waterslides, play equipment and floatables.

These enhancements will help attract community use and generate revenue, Cline said. “This is not a pool for the twelfth high school. It’s an aquatic facility for the school division. There will be many times on nights and weekends that the pool can be made available to the public. We will maximize use for us and the community. The community use will help pay for the operating costs,” he said.

Depending on use, the school division hopes to recoup 70 to 100 percent of the pools’ operating costs through community use, Cline said. Those figures are based on research conducted by a consultant brought in by the school’s architect, Moseley Architects, which included visits to Arlington County, which has pools in each of its three high schools, and Yorktown High School, which splits the operating hours of its pool between school use and community use.

The two pools and the moveable bulkhead in the competitive pool will optimize the use of the facility, Cline said. It will also include a “wet classroom” near the instructional pool that can be used for additional instruction and could also be used for birthday parties on weekends to make money.

Security is an important issue, Cline said. The aquatics facility will be accessed through a separate entrance, and it will be possible to block access into the school from the facility.

Parents and teachers who have addressed the board on the facility have voiced concern over its costs and the need to decrease class size and increase teacher pay.

The facility will cost $10 million to build, which would be covered by the school division’s debt service, at a cost of approximately $750,000, which is part of the operating budget, Johns said. “$750,000 doesn’t pay for a teacher raise; it doesn’t even get us one percent. It costs $15 million to reduce class size across the division by one student at all levels. Whether we build the pool or not, we will continue to have problems with teacher pay and class size.

“The Board has directed the superintendent to address the class size issue. We have to start by looking at class size at one grade level, but what is the overall improvement for students: a one student in one grade level reduction vs. having a facility like this for our swimmers?”

Some in the community disagree, Shannon Geraghty, high school teacher, said “I think we all agree a new pool for our swimmers would be nice, but I would like an indoor soccer complex for my child and volleyball parents want training courts too. The list could go on and on. The reality is the school division doesn’t have enough money to run the programs it currently has, so why entertain a frivolous aquatic facility. We need textbooks, reduced class sizes, more special education aids, updated technology etc. Swimming lanes should not be a priority in lean economic times.”

Jaqui Gerhard, Brentsville teacher, agrees, “I think the pool is a luxury item, like a boat, or a summer home or an expensive sports car or flying first class to Europe for a month. All are great ideas. But, in buying a second vacation home, if you put yourself so above your means that your family and household go without, it makes no sense. Paying on a $130,000 sports car when you can’t afford new clothes for yourself and for your children? How is that even remotely justified? “If the county were flush, and class sizes were down to 24, I’d say go for it. But my colleagues and I are teaching at Brentsville with 32+ in a class.”

Tracy Conroy, a school parent and education blogger, said she is concerned about how the school division spends taxpayers’ money. “They’re currently moving a 10- room relocatable (portable classrooms) to Patriot High School and five trailers to Forest Park. Even if you figure 22 kids per class, that’s 220 kids moving into trailers. The $10 million could be used for an addition to a school. When we have kids in trailers, how do we justify putting in a pool? Last year, my son’s smallest class had 36 kids in it, and his Spanish and Algebra class each had 38. The school board voted a year ago that all additional funding would go to reducing class size,” Conroy said.

“The new school will cost $111 million, as opposed to Patriot which cost $84 million. Freedom and Battlefield were built for under $50 million each. We can’t afford it. Reagan Middle School was $28 million, and it is beautiful. What are we doing?” she asked.

In an “Aquatics Center for PWCS? Fact and Fiction” article, published on the school division webpage, school officials said that “many factors go into the price of building a new school, and the economy suggests that several, including labor and material costs are going up annually. Keep in mind that the high school[s] in question would be completed between four and seven years from now. Their higher estimated costs simply reflect an included inflation factor.

“Everything in the [School Board’s] strategic plan is about improving education,” she continued. “There’s nothing about a pool or increasing community involvement through a community center. [Teachers] want to do the best they can in their jobs, and if they don’t get the support they need, they won’t stay. We have fewer teacher assistants, paper, books, just basic supply needs. In some [affluent] areas, that’s not a factor, but it becomes an equity issue.”

Conroy is also concerned about security and other issues inherent in operating a pool that is open to the public and attached to a school building, including supervision of locker and changing areas. “Will the bags of people entering the pool be checked for guns or bombs? Will security checks be required for access?” she asked.

“They talk about the advantages for special education students. But how is a kid with MS going to be transported to the facility and who will go with him? What about transportation costs? Pool use will not be an IEP (Individual Education Program) item, so it will not be funded. Some children wear adult diapers and are subject to privacy laws; where will they be changed? Their pool has a lot of holes in it. These are just a few of the issues that need to be addressed,” she said.