Saratoga News
News
Photograph by George Sakkestad
Adrienne Simpson is one of between 20 and 30 adults who utilize the Saratoga High School pool during the noon adult swim program run by the De Anza Cupertino Aquatic Organization.
School pool will be closed to outsiders at noon
ByShannon Burkey
Saratoga High School will discontinue its noon adult swim program starting on March 1, leaving some of those who utilize the program feeling insulted.
After evaluating the program, principal Jeff Anderson felt there were safety issues surrounding adults coming onto the school campus during the day and decided to end the program that has been in place since the pool was completed six years ago.
"It's a non-school program occurring on campus during the school day, and it's not appropriate. This is nothing against the folks involved," Anderson said. "This is a school between 7:15 a.m. and 3:15 p.m. There is a liability that cannot be ignored, and if there is a liability issue, it will come to me."
The program, run by De Anza Cupertino Aquatics, allows any adult to use the pool for a drop-in fee of $5 between noon and 1:30 p.m. The noon open swim has been in place since the pool opened in August 2000, and many swimmers, including Saratoga resident Lisa Fischer-Colbrie, have been using it since day one.
Fischer-Colbrie said she realizes the school has some issues with the swimmers, but she is upset because of the way Anderson has handled the situation.
"As a mother, I understand the concerns that they have, and yet I thought there would be a happy medium ground where we could keep our children safe and still give adults access," she said.
Fischer-Colbrie said she and several of the other swimmers had compromises in mind to limit their contact with the students, even though she said it was rare that there was contact.
The adults participating in the swim program have access to a small area of the locker room and showers but are separated from the rest of the locker room by a curtain.
Among the compromises the swimmers were prepared to offer was to give up access to the locker room. The swimmers, most of whom are regulars and are familiar with each other, were even prepared to be fingerprinted and have background checks done, according to Fischer-Colbrie.
"We were willing to do a whole host of things, but we never got to the point were we could discuss them. Jeff Anderson said he would only deal with DACA. We didn't feel like we were able to give voice to our concerns," she said.
Although De Anza Cupertino Aquatics rents the pool and oversees the program, the swimmers are not a part of the aquatic organization. Other than a coach who watches over the swimmers, Fischer-Colbrie said they have never met with anyone from the center and no one ever talked to them about the situation with the school. The swimmers all received e-mails in mid-January telling them the program was being discontinued, which was the first they had heard of an issue.
Jerry Koch, director of the swim school at De Anza Cupertino Aquatics, said their hands are tied because the school does not want adults on the campus during the day.
"It's the school's property. It's the school's decision. If they tell us they don't want us to run the program anymore, we don't have any say," Koch said.
Swimmer Laurie Hinshaw has children at the school, so she is devoted to keeping the students safe, but she does not see the swimmers as a concern and thinks the school needs to be more concerned with outsiders coming into the school.
"We're all moms and we wouldn't want to do anything at the expense of our children, but nothing bad has ever happened with us here."
Swimmers have sent letters to the city manager's office looking for help and have sent numerous letters to Anderson to try and work out a compromise.
Anderson, however, is not going back on his decision and said that there are other pools in the area offering noontime swim without students present.
"We are totally for the community, and we do a lot of things on this campus for the community. We have all kinds of great community activities not taking place during the school day, and that's the linchpin," he said.
But for the swimmers who have used the pool for years without a problem, that just doesn't cut it.
"It's so sad that you have a beautiful facility that's going to sit idle during the day," Fischer-Colbrie said. "I'm unhappy that the program is going to be lost, but I'm equally unhappy with the way it was handled. We're all very reasonable people--we're all parents. If it has to be, it has to be, but we just wanted the chance to be heard and to offer other options."
