Hindsight: The lost NCHS swimming pool and the Pathways disaster.

The Star Tribune has this headline this morning:

Pathways' enrollment remains low, but principal says new system, 'baby steps' will bring facility to capacity

In that article, we learn the following:

Pathways Innovation Center’s enrollment is at roughly 250 students — a quarter of its capacity — but a school official said he was confident that number would grow as more students become aware of the facility’s offerings.

Will it grow? 

I doubt it.  

Not until it's simply made a third high school anyway, which I'd predict will occur within the next five to ten years. 

Not that we really need one now.  School enrollment has declined and people pulled out.  Indeed, a lot of those people who pulled out around here were votes when the school bond issue on the swimming pool for NCHS was put up to vote several years ago, and failed.

And additional funding for Pathways was part of that same bond.

In retrospect, nearly everything about that bond issue was handled in correctly.  Those of us who wanted a pool to replace the 1923 pool that came out when NC's massive reconstruction project started really were interested in that narrow issue. But the school district linked it to funding for Pathways.  It turned out that a lot of people weren't keen on Pathways.  I wasn't keen on Pathways for that matter and, frankly, if I'd been left with a yes or no decision on only that, I may have voted no.  There must have been a big fear that a lot of people had similar views as the district bundled the pool with Pathways on the bond in the thought, I think, that support for the pool would carry the day.  

That was a mistake.  Opposition to Pathways, including opposition by teachers, may have sank the pool.

Acquiescing to the city's and county's request that a special election be held, rather than combining it with the general election, may have done it in also.  The city/county was worried about the additional Once Cent tax passing, upon which the city depends for many things.  Their thought was that if the bond issue proved unpopular all taxes might and that they might go down with the bond.  That might have been right, but agreeing to their request meant that only voters who were really motivated to vote. . . yes or no. . came out.  Not the mass of voters who have been generally more supportive of bonds and taxes.  The district should have said no to the city/county. After all, the One Cent wasn't their problem.

Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk, eh?

I suppose.

But there's still plenty of room in the part of the athletic building to accommodate a pool.  It could still be done.

But nobody is talking about it.

And perhaps that's not surprising.  Now the economy here is hurting and there's no movement to do stuff like this.  Once the reconstruction is over at NC and KW the number of heavy construction jobs here will plummet accordingly, however, so maybe this is a good time to consider it?  

Of course nobody is actively agitating for it either.  Once we lost the bond issue, we gave up.  When something was done at NC on another athletic facility I noted that to a board member who in turn noted to me that a parents' group had backed it. What were we swimming fans doing? Well. . . nothing.

And I don't suppose we're going to either.

Still, it's frustrating.  Football seems to get attention no matter what. The other sports, maybe they do, maybe they don't.  Traveling around the state I see how that's so often the case.  One high school here has a pool, the others do not.  Rock Springs High School has a very nice set of tennis courts.  Casper's high schools have. . . none.  But then there's little room at the Casper schools, except for Pathways, for such facilities either, given that they're surrounded by the town.  Rock Spring's high school must have been on the edge of town when it was built. Gillette's has a really nice aquatic center for its swimmers, which is also a city facility.  Casper has an aquatic center but its not an Olympic pool.  

Oh well.

Well, one thing that has happened that will impact high school sports here is that Gillette finally admitted it had two high schools, rather than one with two campuses.  Our school district's going to have to take that path with Pathways.  The campus approach is failing.