Keeping a Swimming Pool at NCHS

I was on the Natrona County High School swim team in 1978-1979 and 1979-1980.  I might have been in 1980-1981 as well, my senior year, but I can't quite recall.  When I was a high school senior I only went to high school half days, and then to college in the afternoon, so I can't really recall if I swam that year or not.  Seems to me that I did.

Natrona County High School, a classic structure built in 1923, but with a pool that is now less than 25 yards long and in need of replacement.

I'm not the first member of my family to swim at the NCHS pool.  My father (graduating class of 1946) did as well.  And we're certainly not the only ones.  My wife swam at the pool while attending NC, and my father in law did as well, learning how to swim there.  And now my son, who is a member of the NC swim team, does.

I also worked at the NC pool one year.  I was a swimming teacher and a life guard there.  I obtained my certification to do that in a NC PE class.

The pool is the oldest indoor pool in Wyoming.  Indeed, it's one of the oldest ones in the Western United States.  It'll be destroyed this summer and, right now, the ongoing presence of a swimming pool at NCHS is in jeopardy.

The pool will be destroyed as a massive renovation project is going on at old NCHS.  Indeed, a massive renovation project is also going on at Kelly Walsh High School across town as well, and they're very nice Olympic sized pool is also slated for removal and replacement, just like NC's.  The high school in Midwest is also in need of a new pool (I hadn't been aware, up until recently, that it had a pool).  So a lot is going on construction wise.

Indeed so much is going on construction wise that that the wisdom of that, in my view, is questionable.  The renovations at NCHS practically amount to building a new school, while keeping part of the old one, in the middle of town.  It'll take several years to complete and is well underway now.  The renovations at KW are not quite as extensive, but are massive by any measure.  The alternative high school, Roosevelt, is slated to receive a completely new building.  With this much going on the logical question does occur of whether simply building a new high school, on the west side of town, with a pool and full facilities (Roosevelt lacks athletic facilities entirely) would have been a much better ideal, with some necessary improvements to KW and NC.  That idea was floated, but it proved unpopular for some reason.  It was frankly a better idea.  That being the case, the renovations are in the works.

 

 The Kelly Walsh High School pool, which was built on an unstable hill in the 1960s. The pool has required renovations in recent years as it slides downhill, which will continue to happen and render this pool unserviceable at some point.

As part of this, the old NCHS pool will be torn down.  Logic would require that new pool be built, and there are plans to build one.  Indeed, not only logic, but the law may require it.

Wyoming's public schools are required to teach swimming, and for a very good reason.  It's for that reason that the state's high schools have pools, not for team athletics.  Long ago the Legislature recognized that swimming was the one and only athletic endeavor in high schools which saved lives.

Wyoming is a dry state, and unlike states with a lot of beachfront of one kind or another, a fair number of people, particularly rural people, never learn how to swim.  If you are living far out in the country, in Powder River, Lynch, or Kaycee, or any number of similar towns, there's no pools nearby and much of Wyoming's pond water isn't really suitable for recreational swimming. We do have water sports, particularly in the reservoirs, but that doesn't guaranty that a kid growing up here will learn to swim. . .until he hits high school.

The legislature determined that in order to address that, and help keep people from drowning, swimming should be incorporated into PE, the same way the Navy required (and perhaps still does) swimming instruction for recruits.  You might not come out the worlds best swimmer from high school PE, but at least you'll know how to swim.

And some do go on to really become avid swimmers.  To my surprise, my mother (who did not grow up here) once related to me that she'd learned to swim as a young adult.  She was an avid, and very good, swimmer, but she didn't learn until she was an adult  As an adult, she swam every day for decades.

Swimming is also one of the very few high school sports that actually also a life long benefit to the participants.  Here, I'll admit I'm remiss.  I was an okay competitive swimmer at that time, and did that for most of my youth, but after high school I've only occasionally swam.  But I do still know how.  Everyone who learns swimming in high school won't stick with it, but they can, and some will. 

That contrasts enormously with other high school sports.  Some are lifetime sports.  Tennis, skiing, and the "recreational sports" they now offer. But the classic high school sport, football, is just a young man's sport and that's it.  The percentage of men who play football after age 18, if they were high school football players, probably is something in the two digits, if not 1 even a few years after they graduate. By their 30s, it's down in the 1 digit for sure.  Football becomes a watching, not playing, game only a few years after the former stars graduate.

All of this argues strongly for a new pool to be built, as planned, at NC.  And I think it might be an untested legal requirement.  But here's the oddity, sporting facilities are not funded by the state in Wyoming, even while the construction of schools is.

There is a legitimate reason for this, as one of the oddities of school construction is that communities will spring for some sporting facilities before academic ones, and the state didn't want any part of that. But with some athletic facilities, such as gyms and pools, they're really part and parcel of the academics and shouldn't be viewed that way.  Indeed, as the state requires swimming be taught, it ought to include pools in the funding.

But here funding is not forthcoming from the state and so the school district is planning to ask for a bond from the voters.

Recent bond issues have not gone well here, except for Casper College. The voters seem willing to pass bonds for Casper College, but otherwise they've been stingy in recent years.  Or at least it seems so (no school bond issues have been floated, so we don't really know).  Casper College has seen massive reconstruction in the past few years.

This started when the county tried to float a bond for a new courthouse several years ago. The old one was long in the tooth and they came up with a plan to renovate it and asked for voter approval, but a movement developed against it and it was voted down. That controversy had its own oddities, so perhaps it doesn't mean much, but it did occur.  Ultimately, funding was found via some other route and the courts moved across the street to the renovated Townsend Hotel, which is now the courthouse.  No county bond money was used, however.

 

 The Depression era Natrona County courthouse, a beautiful structure, it was built with one courtroom.  Voters rejected proposed rennovations to it.

 

The Townsend Justice Center. Built as a first class downtown hotel, by the 1970s the Townsend was a flop house, but with a pretty good restaurant, home to the down and out and prostitutes.  It closed in the 1980s, and was renovated in the 2000s as a courthouse.

Following that, the library tried to obtain voter approval to move out of its antiquated home into a new facility.  I don't think they're campaign was what it should have been, which may explain their failure, but it fell flat and they voters told them to stay where they are.

Subsequently something similar was tried with a civic center, something we don't have but which a local committee has been planning for years. The center would, by my understanding, house the performing arts. Locals weren't sufficiently interested and funding commitments couldn't be met, so the project went to sleep, more or less.

A person may ask why all of this occurred, and frankly these stories may not be related. The courthouse project might have gone through but for the dedicated and somewhat misinformed leadership of the campaign against it, which spread some stories that were off the mark. And nobody is really that excited about courthouses anymore, even though at one time they were the center of a community.  The library campaign, in my view, was tainted by a certain atmosphere that seemed to be one of entitlement, which voters generally don't like.  And, frankly, the library has to better establish its relevance in an era when vast amounts of information can be had by turning on the your computer, and when you fear that your child is sitting next to some fellow at the library who hasn't showered since 1972 and whose looking up back issues of Skanky on the library computer.

The civil center might just frankly have been a bad fit for the community.  This city has always been very oil industry centric, and many people here just have no interest in a center for the performing arts. Again, they'll have to sell that better, or wait for a bigger town, I suspect.

But it also could be that we're in a boom right now and that impacts everything about our local economy and how people vote.  A large number of people are new here, and many of them really have roots in the states much further to our south.  Over time, the ones who stay will develop roots here, but right now, "home" is Bartlesville Oklahoma, or Odessa Texas, rather than Casper, for many.

 In this atmosphere, the Tribune took a pool and found that something like 57% or so of the voters approved the bond that was then being proposed, which also included proposed work to the NCHS stadium.  Most informed folks now that 57% is actually a pretty good percentage in an election.  A Presidential election that comes in that high is declared as "landslide" which creates a "mandate."  But here, where many elections are nearly uncontested, people are no longer use to the idea that an election in which a side doesn't roll in over 60% of the vote is normal.

Perhaps for that reason, the Tribune then came out against the pools. That's really bad as the Tribune has an influence, although not a commanding one.

Well, the current proposal relates solely to the pools.  And NCHS needs one.  I'm hoping that people realize that, and that the district continues to advance it.  If we omit one from NC, I think we may be in violation of the law, and we'll certainly be in violation of common sense.  Some rural kid isn't going to learn how to swim.  Those who naively state that it's okay for a student from one school to drive to another for that instruction live in a world of the future, where a car can get across a town whose roads were once cow tracks in 10 minutes. That day isn't here.  They'll just not learn it, we will have failed in our educational duty, and we're putting those kids at risk.

NCHS needs to get  a new pool.

Postscript:

The Natrona County School Board will be holding a session at University Park School on Monday January 27, 2014, at 7:30, which will discuss this topic. 

Postscript II

The board meeting last night drew a large crowd, a good number of whom were high school competitive swimmers.  Also, however, a fair number of faculty from NC and KW spoke in favor of keeping the swimming pool bond issue tied to the general bond issue, which is the matter really in dispute here.  Some very fine points were made.

One which I noted above was made by a businessman, who noted that 57% of the those polled is actually a very good percentage, particularly from the onset.  A Kelly Walsh math teacher who had analyzed the poll results made some good points about the small number of people polled and the degree to which that cast some doubt on the results.

Several people spoke very well on the teaching aspect of the pools, which is the primary point, really.  One speaker noted that school safety upgrades are on the general bond, but that statistically a child is much more likely to drown than be injured in any sort of school place violence.  And a NC teacher specifically noted the local instances of drowning that have occurred here, in recent years, every year and how failure to make the upgrades will undoubtedly contribute to that increasing as at first will loose one, and then sooner or later the second, pool.  Indeed, the KW athletics coordinator pointed out the numerous problems KWHS is presently having with their pool.

Postscript III

The pool bond issue hit both the Casper Star Tribune and the Casper Journal. The Journal ran a comprehensive article on the recent school board meeting, the Tribune ran an editorial.

The Journal's article had some very nice quotes contained in it, including some from the School Board which I think correctly shows the enthusiasm that actually exists for the pools.  The journal noted the following being said at the conclusion of the meeting.  I should note that these comments came at the end of the meeting. At one point the chairman of the board noted that they were not taking the matter up that night, and were moving on to the topic of dual language immersion, so that the people who came to support the school were free to leave, that topic having been concluded for the evening.  Apparently the board felt it should address the comments at the end of the meeting.

I  wish all the people were still here so I could tell them thank you for being so interested in caring,” said trustee Paula Reid. “We’ll have more to come on this, so I ask them to please stay tuned. We'll need their help.”

“We had roughly 25 people get up and passionately speak to the pools,” said trustee Suzanne Sandoval. “I don't see any way other than it needs to be one question, and I would actually question whether or not we need to go forward with the polling at this point.”

“I so appreciate all the people who came out in support of the pool,” said trustee Rita Walsh. “I would agree with Suzanne that I don't think it's necessary to go forward with more polling information at this point.

“I would like to thank and recognize all of the swimming community who showed up and the passion that they showed,” said trustee Kevin Christopherson. “I was born and raised in this town, and I swam in both pools — though there's not much left of the NC pool — but it's kind of scary to think that what our parents and grandparents built for us, out of purely taxes, that we couldn't do that for the future generations that are going to come and use these swimming facilities. So I have faith in Casper that this is going to pass. I think we should keep it as one question.”

“I, too, was really impressed by the passion that was felt in this room tonight,” said trustee Dave Driggers. “We're going to need that passion, we're going to need every one of these people that spoke, and their grandparents, and their parents, and to drag about five or six additional people to the polling places. If we can somehow be assured that this passion will remain in the next three months, not only through verbal support, but going to the polling places and actually voting, I agree with previous trustees comments that probably additional polling probably won't help that much in the question.”

“About the swimming, I would just like to say that passion is an amazing thing, it gets you all kinds of places you wouldn't expect,” said trustee Dana Howie. “I enjoyed listening to all the stories and … I took swimming lessons in the NC pool and I taught swimming lessons in the NC pool, and they need the pool, and then we also need to keep Kelly Walsh's pool viable and improve it if we can. And we can't forget Midwest either, because Midwest needs a pool; the school is part of that community, the school is the community. So I think that's just as important as well.”

The Casper Star Tribune, however, took a negative stand on the pool once again, calling it a "poison pill" on the bond issue.  The Tribune seems to feel that the vote for the bond will go negative if the pools are on it, even though over 50% of those poled are in favor of the bond issue right now.  The really weird thing about the Tribune's editorial, however, is that it fails to address that the separation of the bond issue  will mean that the separate topic will be for school safety enhancements.

That's odd, as swimming is not only a mandated topic for students in Wyoming, but it's also a mandated topic for safety reasons.  Next to driving, water poses one of the most substantial risk to life that there is.  We have drownings in this are every year and quite a few people do not learn how to swim until they are in high school.  The tribune just ignores that.

The tribune in particular ought to know better, as it's located nearly directly across from that part of the Platte River Parkway dedicated to river sports, and where there's been a drowning within the past few years.

It's odd that in this day and age we have such a skewed sense of risk that we make sure we teach certain safety related things, irrespective of the risk, and then will go on to urge the omission of others.  There has been an organization campaigning in the state recently to raise the driving age up to 18, for safety reasons.  The Tribune opposes that.  In school, we require kids to sit through a class with the euphemistic name of "life skills", even though that class trespasses on the beliefs of many parents, in the name of health safety.  The difference would simply seem to be a lack of understanding that pools equate with safety.

Postscript IV

From the Natrona County School District's website:

Central Services Facility

Public Notice - Board of Trustees to Hold Bond Issue Public Hearings
02.04.2014
Notice of Public Hearings
Natrona County School District No. 1
Board of Trustees

In accordance with Wyoming Statute 21-13-701(c) The Natrona County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees, prior to submitting a bond proposition to district voters, will hold public hearings for the purpose of providing an explanation of the need to obtain district funding for building and facility features that are in excess of state standards for buildings and facilities and taking public comment. The hearings are scheduled for:

Monday February 10, 2014 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Monday February 24, 2014 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.

The hearings will be held at the District Central Services Facility located at 970 N. Glenn Road Casper, WY.

Postscript V

 

Swimming Pools — NCSD Transform

Swimming Pools — NCSD Transform

Nice site on the proposed pools and the bond issue.

Here's the reason for the bond issue:  "While the State of Wyoming requires that Natrona County Schools operate and maintain a swimming pool to serve the needs of the district’s high school students, it is unwilling to pay for these facilities."  In other words, the state requires students have access to a pool (for safety reasons really), but won't pay for them.

If they aren't built, NCHS won't have one, and the district will arguably be immediately out of compliance with the law.  That would, quite frankly, seem to invite a law suit, which isn't the district's fault really, but that's what it might do.

Midwest, which tends to be the forgotten high school in the county, has an inadequate pool, would almost certainly seem to be out of compliance with the law without a new one.  For some reason, we tend to forget that Midwest even has a high school, let alone a pool, but they have both, and they need a new pool.

Here's something else worth noting:

The original proposal being discussed by the Board of Education has been
scaled back in scope and now includes the following projects:

• Replacement of NCHS’s 85-year-old
  swimming pool with a new 8-lane pool, diving area
  
  and seating
• Renovation of
  the existing KWHS swimming pool—including new pool equipment, plumbing,
  electrical, lighting and pool deck surface—providing 8 lanes, diving area and
  additional seating
• Design and
  construction of a new Midwest Pool with new supporting equipment, plumbing,
  
  electrical (within the existing pool building), new roof and remodeled locker
  rooms, restrooms and offices

What this doesn't note is that without the bond issue, at least the NC pool will be gone.  It sounds like the younger KW pool is in a terminal state as well.  It's usable, but long term it doesn't look good for it.  While some people are balking at the cost, it's important to note:

The scaled-back
proposal for improving the district’s swimming pools is an estimated $5.8
million LESS than the cost of constructing one large aquatic center to serve
the needs of the entire district. 

Note only is it less, but frankly the idea of "one large aquatic center" to serve the needs of the district is absurd.  No such central location can conceivably serve the needs of Midwest and we know it won't.  Those kids won't be bused across the county for swimming.  It'd take up at least half the school day, if the weather is good.

For that matter, swimming will drop off for both KW and NC students with a central pool.  Casper isn't that easy to get around in during the day, as any Casperite knows.  Students at NC, if they leave during the day, go west, not east, as that's the easy way for them to go.  KW students go east for the same reason.  Where could a pool even be built that would be only five or so minutes from both schools?  Nowhere.

And consider the actual pools. Here's the proposal for Midwest:

Midwest Pool.  A very rational sized pool, that the students there deserve.

And here's the one for NCHS.  Again, this is hardly a palatial pool, although it is one that would allow NCHS's swim team to have swimming meets in their pool for the first time in many many years.  Indeed, it's worth considering that should an increase in fuel costs ever cause the state to cease funding local busing, and that end up in terminating our county's unique "school of choice" system, about half the KWHS swim team would end up going to NCHS, assuming that, at that time, KW's team has a demographic similar to the existing team, and assuming that at that point in time KW still has a pool, which it very may well not, should the bond issue fail.

The real reason, of course, for the state requirement that the students have access to a pool is that their risk of dieing by drowning is reduced, a very worthwhile goal. And its that average student that the pools serve. These pools would do that job nicely, and the bond for them is well worth supporting. 

Postscript VI

Its interesting note how some will view projects of this type.

Having adequate swimming facilities at the county's three high schools (I sometimes think people in the county forget that Midwest even has a high school) benefits everyone.  It benefits everyone as it teaches a life saving skill, it benefits everyone as it teaches a lifetime sport, and the facilities have always been used by the public when not in school use.  And yet the Casper Star Tribune has been against them.

This morning, however, the Tribune is editorializing about the State Land Investment Board not funding, to the full extent of the request, a petition put in by Casper for a conference center.  The state will only fund half.  the Tribune complains about that and calls the board a "clown car" for its procedures in regards to this request and states that now the county must find a way to come up with the rest.

Oh?  Why is that?

The Tribune doesn't really bother to tell us, but basically we can surmise that it agrees with the logic advanced for this proposition. That is, it provides lacking conference space and facilities for Casper, which in turn causes Casper to fail to draw conferences we'd like to, which in turn would boost the local economy.

The argument is strained in several ways. For one thing, there's not really a shortage of big space in the community.  We have a college that allows its facilities to be used, and much of the college has just benefited from new construction.  We also have a selection of hotels, which by and large are the facilities that host such events in most places.  I've been at numerous conferences and classes in this city's hotels.  The opponents of the state funding have noted that they feel that essentially the state is being asked to enter into something that's the domain of private enterprise, and whether the proposal is a good one or not, the critics are at least partially correct on that score.

In contrast, the arguments in favor of the pools are the same ones that can be advanced for the conference center, but without the same counters.  We very well know in this community that some sporting facilities draw in enormous crowds to the town.  One that I would never have guessed would do this has been soccer fields, and yet it is now very well demonstrated that this towns soccer fields are a big draw during the soccer season, bringing in thousands of dollars in revenue.  Basketball does the same thing at the high school level, as does wrestling.  At the college level, the College Rodeo Finals are a huge event here.  Having two decent pools to replace the one going out and the one that's wearing down would do the same thing, and we should know that.

And yet, we also know that private enterprise doesn't build pools. Of the several pools in this town, there's only one that's a competitive meter pool, that being KWHS's.  NC's was when built, but it was a competitive yard pool, and subsequent construction has shortened it to 23, rather than 25, yards.  The diving boards were taken out some time ago.  Another yard pool belongs to the YMCA, which is not a private enterprise entity but the property of what few realize is actually a religious organization.  The town's aquatic center lacks a lane pool, and has rather sort of what I'd call a "fun" pool.  Unlike conference space, no private enterprise organization is going to build a competitive pool.

It's things like competitive pools, soccer fields, athletic facilities, that are a proper role of local governmental entities of various types.  It's odd that the Tribune would be boosting something that is arguably the role of private business, irrespective of whether it is a good idea or not, while opposing something that is clearly in everyone's best interest and not arena of private enterprise.