When Pierce’s aquatics center was built, local community residents of all ages were able to use it for holding local competitions, swimming classes, and even physical rehabilitation. I believe that the school’s pool should be open to the public because it serves a purpose to not only our students, but to those in our community who may not own a pool and it gives them the opportunity to take advantage of all the benefits that come with our beautiful aquatics center.
During the late 90’s the pool center was closed down due to expensive maintenance, local residents held fundraisers and formed a group by the name of “Friends of Pierce Pool”. They had donations to keep the center open for the public, it makes me believe that if the people were willing to fight to keep the pool open was because it serves a great purpose to them. Therefore, closing the pool for people who are not Pierce students would be a bit selfish, especially after seeing how hard residents fought to keep it around.
After being remodeled in the year 2009, Steven Schofield center has been used by older residents for rehabilitation purposes, the pool provides classes throughout the day for them to improve their physical condition. There are also swimming classes held for children, throughout the summer parents can bring their kids to our pool where they are taught how to swim and even compete amongst other children. I believe that keeping the pool open to the public does a great service to our loyal residents of all ages. People might wonder say that the public can go to local pools in community parks, but those pools are not open year round and some may not even offer the classes that we have at the Schofield center.
Another thing to put into perspective is that yes the pool may benefit the public and the community but it also benefits the school. Those who take classes at the aquatics center do pay to use the pool and for the services provided, so I believe some of that money can be used towards the maintenance of the center which I can imagine is not cheap.
Every time I walk through our fairly new and improved aquatics center, I always see it clean and well maintained, which means that those who are using the pool are doing a good job of taking care of it. There is a fear that the public may not take good care of the pool, but these people have been using our center for years now that they see it as part of their daily routine and they appreciate it as well.
I believe that we should keep the pool open to our public because our school is public, why would we keep our pool private especially when it serves such great purpose to our people? Closing the pool for the public seems selfish, and holding those extra curricular classes for the public helps fund the maintenance of the aquatics center so that it remains clean and running for all.