6 Comments

  1. By Chris
    April 29, 2009 at 1:38 pm | permalink

    I can’t believe they are actually considering closing a facility that school kids use five days a week for physical education, on top of the community use. I thought we were trying to increase activity in school-aged children in the fight against obesity.

  2. By Steve Bean
    April 29, 2009 at 2:56 pm | permalink

    They (the city) are not closing the facility, Chris. The school will still operate it during the school year for student use. They (the school system) might even offer it for community use in the evenings and summer, but that remains to be seen.

  3. By Julie
    April 30, 2009 at 9:15 am | permalink

    Actually, the proposal is to close the pool year-round, permanently. The snafu is that the pool is joint-owned and operated by the city and the school, so the school is not going to want to let the city out of that contract.

  4. By My two cents
    April 30, 2009 at 10:46 am | permalink

    Speaking from the experience of being a girl who was forced to take swimming in gym class, most girls hate it and would love to have the pool go away. (especially middle school and high school girls)

    How many woman out there would like it if during their day they were forced to go swimming and then only have 10 minutes to change and make yourselves presentable.

    You will probably get cheers not jeers from these gym class participants.

    Of course after hours swimming or swim team sports are a different story.

  5. By Steve Bean
    April 30, 2009 at 11:17 am | permalink

    My mistake. I missed the proposal for the second year of the budget. Here’s the summary from the Chronicle’s coverage:

    “Mack Pool is a venue for the general public and organized groups, such as master swimming and the Dawn Ducks, which swims weekdays from 7:15-8:15 a.m. The city’s proposed budget would close the pool during the summer months this year, then close it permanently in the summer of 2010 or turn it over to the Ann Arbor Public Schools, which would save the city $59,000.”

  6. By Julie
    April 30, 2009 at 2:18 pm | permalink

    Right, Steve. And my understanding is that the schools have a contract with the city to co-operate and co-own for something like 99 years (or a really long time)… so that “turning it over to the schools” business might not fly so well.
    MTC, the majority of kids using that pool are grade-schoolers. Mack is a K-8 school, and only the elementary school kids use it weekly. Swimming is a frequent elective for the middle-schoolers, but not mandatory.