Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack D. Dale (Larry Morris/The Washington Post)
Swimming and diving could face a 50 percent cut in practice time under the newest proposed Fairfax County Public Schools budget.
According to the proposal presented by FCPS Superintendent Jack D. Dale, the reduction in practice time is just one of the cuts that also include the elimination of indoor track and all freshman sports.
According to Bill Curran, student activities and athletics director for Fairfax County, the cuts to swimming would save $100,000. It is a move, he said, that is necessary.
Curran said the county made strides to avoid cutting the sport altogether, and researched whether teams could still be effective with just two practices.
“It’s hard,” Curran said. “The budget is what it is, so everybody has some sort of impact on it. ….. This kept the program alive, which is a big part. Swimming and diving is very popular, so we didn’t want to see any elimination of it. We didn’t touch swim meets; the opportunity to compete is still there, which is important. It’s enough practice time for them to get in some time that they need.”
The impact of decreased practice time may not affect many swimmers who compete at the club level. However a drop from four to two practices a week for those who do not swim year-round would have a substantial impact, according to parents and coaches.
“If you’re not swimming year round or swimming every day it’s awfully hard to swim a competitive [race],” said Betty Ann Dobrenz, an organizer with Save Our Sport, a group that has fought against swim cuts in Fairfax County in past years. “It’s a pretty devastating blow to the sport. I think it can go on, but it’s going to exclude a lot of kids and it’s unfortunate because not everybody has the money to participate in club sports.”
Without training during the week, kids who are unable to pay and participate with club teams may be unable to maintain a competitive level for their high school teams.
The impact would be biggest on the smaller high school teams that draw a large percentage of swimmers that do not participate in club swimming. Even at Robinson, which won both the boys’ and girls’ Virginia AAA state championships last year (the boys’ team has won seven consecutive titles), there could be a significant impact, according to Coach Clayton Joyner.
“We’re basically screwed big time,” he said. “That’s just a proposal and I’m thinking 50 percent seems a little harsh. And I know when I first started swimming there was no Wednesday [practice] it was just Monday, Tuesday, Thursday so my guess would be that it’ll go back to that and as bad as that is, it’s not the end of the world. If it goes to 50 percent that’s going to cause problems because that’s just not training at all, it’s just somewhat staying in shape. They’re in trouble, that’s all there is too it.”
Fairfax is not the first area county to limit high school swim teams to two practices a week due to the cost of renting pool time. Montgomery County has had the policy in place for as long as Wootton Coach Howard Blume can remember.
“There’s no pool time,” Blume said. “It’s not a level playing field. You have the club swimmers who swim five or six times a week and then you have everyone else who can only swim once or twice a week.”
Several schools also run dry-land practices, although Blume said many are voluntary and he recently eliminated such practices at Wootton due to lack of interest.
“Most of our swimmers are on club teams, and they just have to attend practice,” Blume said. “The kids that are in the water during our practices are your kids that don’t swim for clubs. But when you’ve only got two hours a week, you can’t do much with a kid.”
Despite the prospect of losing practice time, however, coaches around the area said they are grateful the sport avoided an even worse fate.
“I’m trying to be realistic, I don’t want them to make any cuts,” W.T. Woodson Coach Susie Hamrock said. “But I’m just glad they’re keeping the program, whereas last year they were trying to cut the whole sport.”
stats corner
Since every Fairfax high school swim team I can think of practices at a Fairfax County rec center, the $100,000 in purported savings (a suspiciously round number, don’t you think?) most likely would come from the Fairfax County Public Schools paying less in pool rental fees to the Fairfax County Park Authority.
Kind of stupid, no?
In Montgomery County, the swim/dive team always has two practices per week. It would be fair for MCPS swimmers to compete at the Metro with Fairfax County swimmers then, this is for those non-club swimmers.
The kids that swim in Metros only go to their respected HS practices once a week. Metros is no joke and you have to be fast to qualify and to be fast you have to put in the time for a club team. Schools such as Falls Church, Stuart, Edison, and Hayfield are in for a lot of trouble however simply because some of those teams only have a couple of club swimmers period.
Two hours per week of training is silly to expect anyone to get in condition to race.
Our Fairfax County high school has only one or two year round swimmers, yet in our District are three Arlington County high schools that we face in duel meets that have pools within their schools and as far as I know have no plans on reducing practices.
The kids are always so delighted when they ask their time after a race and find out its a new best time…they learn about important life lessons such as hard work, time and effort put into something, and setting and obtaining goals. I don’t see there being much improvement at all with two hours per week.
The cost savings of not having to rent lanes is mostly budgeting games with county taxpayer money. County schools spend less, but County rec centers get less income so its a wash…and in the meantime make a joke of high school swim. Yes, the club teams may pick up some of the lanes, but it won’t immediate or 100% right away.
Also what other SINGLE SEASON sport, with the PARTICIPATION NUMBERS that swim/dive draws, is being asked to cut their practices in half? Yes swim/dive has to rent practice lanes. But what about efficencies such as Boys and Girls practice same time/same place, and have meets same time/same place, JV and Varsity have meets at the same time and place, and all the Officials are 100% free.
To Parent of a swimmer, Montgomery County does not compete against FFX County at metros. Metros is only independent schools. Private school practices are not set by the FFX County school budget.
However, across FFX County, there is significant disparity in school swim teams. Teams at Woodson, McLean, Lake Bradock, Fairfax, or Robinson have a very large percentage of AAU or USS athletes. These teams actually have to cut swimmers/divers. Smaller schools or schools with high diversity like Stuart, Falls Church, Mt Vernon, Edison, or Marshall have very few club athletes. In some cases, these coaches are actually teaching kids to swim for the first time. IN the National District, there are 3 Arlington schools who will still be practicing 5 days a week and competing against the FFX County schools swimming 2 days a week.
Fairfax County is one of the wealthiest counties in the country. No pools in the schools? The county has long outgrown the model of the County Rec Center providing pool time to the high school. Sad! Two days a week is not enough to train swimmers of any level. Varsity Football is not a cheap sport either. What sacrifices will that sport be making to the school system can make its budget.
I pay A LOT of taxes to Fairfax County, and I can’t help wondering about some of the decisions they make about how they spend our money. The closest rec center to our house has had its huge parking lot resurfaced over the past month. There was nothing wrong with the old parking lot. Also, our closest public library has been closed for the past year so it could be demolished and rebuilt. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the old facility, which I used frequently, except maybe that it rarely had any patrons. I don’t even want to begin to think about how much it is costing the taxpayers for the new unnecessary building.
Northern Virginia is a bastion of swimming. The summer-league, year-round teams and high school programs are all very healthy, competitive and filled with great athletes. I just can’t understand why the executives in charge of our tax payer dollars can’t make some decent, common-sense decisions to stop unnecessary expenditures, like repaving perfectly good parking lots and rebuilding perfectly good libraries, instead of cutting popular programs for our kids. They certainly collect enough of our hard-earned money from us. They just need to use the money wisely.
Unfortunately there’s an easy answer to your question. The items you mention are likely out of the capital budget (funding by public bonds, etc). vs. the annual operating budget which funds the swim teams lane rentals, etc. I agree with you FFX parent that there’s alot of ?’s………..but it seems generally more focus/attention to enhancing buildings than building community wellbeing by focusing on the people involved.
As of 25 January 2010 the biggest reason for cuts in FCPS is because of an increase in payments for retirement plans, $71 million, and health care costs, $25 million, which by keeping the budget flat from FY2010 to FY 2011 mean that $96 million in programs and positions have to be cut for FY2011 to make those other increased payments.
See the data and analysis here:
https://sites.google.com/a/fcta.org/fcta—home-page/data/fx-public-schools/20111-fcps-budget-notes
Note that in 2009 spending per pupil was $12,839. In 2011 it’s projected to be $12,869. Inflation hasn’t gone up that much so if spending per pupil is the same as 2009 why can’t we have the same level of school services as 2009? The answer always points back primarily to the FCPS employee retirement plans. It is gobbling up money from a fixed budget.
We need to convert FCPS employees to 401K’s, extend the retirement age, and reduce future benefits. If we don’t reform this antiquated system, more programs will be cut year after year.