Pool instructors treading water

Pool manager makes do with limited swim budget

The Mat-Su Community Schools elementary swim program is moving ahead at full strength, and the Valley's swimming instructors are trying to keep up with the demand.

Last fall, the Mat-Su Borough School District decided not to continue hiring part-time employees to teach the hundreds of elementary school-aged kids that sign up every spring for the Palmer and Wasilla pools' learn to swim program.

The threat of unemployment claims from part-time instructors discouraged the district from rehiring the swimming instructors for this year's spring program. The district decided it did not want to risk paying for potential unemployment claims from temporary employees hired to teach these five-week classes.

Although the Mat-Su school district still performs the essential paperwork end of it, the instruction part of the elementary swim program is left to the borough's pool employees.

Palmer pool manager Page Dilley had to make do with her normal operating budget and squeeze in the hiring of five additional part-time employees to help teach the popular swimming program.

"Right now I am stealing from Peter to pay Paul," Dilley said. "I can't even buy a hole punch. I have to make everything last until June. The last two months is when things really get tight."

Despite the additional burden, Dilley hopes the school district will continue to help out with the program because there are some services the Wasilla and Palmer pools just cannot provide.

"I don't have someone to man the phones all the time," Dilley said. "Fifty percent of the people pay with charge cards over the phone, and we're not equipped for that."

Money collected from the swimming fees is divided up between the Mat-Su School District and the Mat-Su Borough, and then deposited into their respective coffers. The problem, Dilley said, is the borough portion of the money generated from the program goes directly into a general fund, making it impossible to recover income produced by its own efforts.

"I'm wiping out my other accounts . . . to pay for my staff," Dilley said.

Mat-Su Community Schools uses its portion of the money to pay for busing the kids to and from the schools and for the administration of the program. But they are able to open a separate account, making it a self-supporting program as far as the district is concerned.

As far as the program is concerned, elementary-aged students are learning to swim by the hundreds. Valley parents know who is teaching the classes and they are confident with instructors' skills, Dilley said.

One reason why the program is so popular with Valley children is because pool schedulers try to distribute the instructors' work load. Otherwise the water safety instructors (WSIs) would spend too much "back-to-back water time, day after day," causing burnout, Dilley said.

"They conduct classes that are challenging for the kids," she said. "People see the same instructors. The whole secret of the program is to have fresh instructors come on every two days. We try to rotate them."

Since the Wasilla pool did not have enough local swimming teachers, the pool was only able to take on about 250 elementary-aged swimmers this year, which is nearly half of the number attending Palmer's learn to swim program, Dilley said.

"Wasilla has to cut the amount of kids," Dilley said. "My kids don't know how to swim. This is the only way they get to swim."

The possibility of having a successful swimming program in the future hinges on the pool's ability to get interested high school students to become water safety instructors. Funding cuts for the Valley's various swim programs make it difficult for older students to get involved, Dilley said.

"We are very lucky to have Ed Nutter," Dilley said of the Palmer pool's resident water safety instructor.

Nutter is an expert swimmer who provides full-time instruction to would-be teachers at the Palmer pool.

Without funding to bring in more interested high school swimmers who want to learn how to be WSIs, according to Dilley, finding qualified instructors will become more and more difficult.

"If the high schools were still using the pools and offering lifeguard and water safety instruction, we would have more certified instructors to pick from," she said, referring to previous cuts made by the school district.