School lobbies to keep pool accessible
At Monarch Park Collegiate, keeping the school pool open isn’t only about giving students a fun way to spend gym class. It may be a life and death situation.
Special-education teacher Jay Arrington said swimming classes are key in keeping his students healthy so they can live longer lives.
“I have some students with different disorders and it means that their life expectancy may be in the teens or mid-twenties,” Arrington said. “But if we can get them in the pool every week, we can extend their life for another ten years.”
That’s just one of the reasons why staff and parents at Monarch Park Collegiate are fighting to keep their pool open. The only handicapped-accessible pool in the area, it will be drained on Dec. 31 unless the school comes up with an additional $30,000 in funds.
It costs $77,000 a year to keep the pool open, in part because the pool must be kept at a warm 81 degrees F for the special-needs students. The Toronto District School Board has asked the school to contribute $60,000 to its maintenance. Fundraising has already secured half of that.
But now, the school is turning to the community for help. Staff and parents hope the pool can be saved through the sale of permits. The permits buy time for community groups to have weekly swim classes, or even birthday parties and other private events.
The school held a pool open house on Tuesday, Oct. 13 to showcase the facility and advertise its accessibility to the public.
And because the pool is built with the disabled in mind, the school hopes that special-needs groups will make swimming at Monarch Park Collegiate a priority.
“Swimming is a chance for my students to practice their balance. It’s strength training, it’s range of motion, it’s more fluid and supported so they don’t feel like they’re going to drop at any second,” Arrington said. “We want to extend that to the community now as well.”
Sharon Gomes, a parent from Monarch Park, works to help ease the permit process for community members. She said the permits are important because it shows the board that the school has and will have the funds in the future to keep the pool open.
“This is a long-term, sustainable viability plan,” Gomes said. “If we have a swim club coming in two times a week, every week, then we are guaranteed that money. Then the pool almost pays for itself and everyone benefits from it.”
Permits cost $50 an hour, along with lifeguard fees, a small insurance fee and a one-time nominal registration fee.
The community is already taking notice. Gomes said a swim club from the Beach area of Toronto has bought a permit to use the pool. An aqua-fitness group has also signed up.
Area resident Janet O’Neill has lived in the neighbourhood for 32 years. She said she was hopeful community members will make use of the pool now that they know it’s available to them.
“My children learned to swim here,” she said. “I used this pool when the board offered nighttime (swims). I miss not having access. There’s a pool here and the neighbours should have access.”
Toronto-Danforth MP Jack Layton, Toronto-Danforth MPP Peter Tabuns and Beaches-East York MPP Michael Prue attended the open house to lend their support to keeping the facility open.
Layton called the rash of Toronto pool closures “a tragedy,” and suggested canvassing as a way to get the word out to the community about Monarch Park’s pool.
Prue said because the pool is used for the disabled, he would be able to bring up the issue in Parliament next week.
“What I hope to do is raise this in the legislature and ask the minister responsible for disability issues why there is no money flowing to the school board to keep this open for the disabled,” Prue said. “It’s just one little hook. I know lots of people swim here, but it’s what I can do.”
In addition to housing swimming classes for special-needs students from Monarch Park and area schools, the pool serves staff, student physical education classes and is home to the Monarch Park Collegiate swim team. With the closure of the pool at neighbouring Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute, Monarch Park has opened its doors to them as well.
The school only has a few months left to raise the funds needed to keep the facility open.
Arrington said he hates to think of the effect a pool closure will have on his students.
“(Swimming) means a lot to them. It’s also really fun. They love it,” he said. “You see the effects on the kids both physically and emotionally. It’s so important.”
Originally published in The East Toronto Observer, October 16, 2009
