I have been told one or more parents offered District 155 a swimming pool at Prairie Ridge High School.
McHenry has an indoor pool at McHenry West High School. The McHenry Marlins, sponsored by the City's Recreation Department, practice and hold meets there, as do the high school water sports teams
But the offer was turned down by either the administration or the school board because the decision-making authority did not want one school have a swimming pool while the other three did not.
No big surprise that families living on the north side of Crystal Lake in the vicinity of Prairie Ridge are better off than families attending the other three high schools.
Last month the Chicago Tribune ran a front page article about how school districts coped with parental financing of school activities in districts with diverse demographics.
So, I’m not surprised that that one or a couple of parents were able to finance a pool.
The logic of all schools getting a swimming pool or none at all is interesting.
From an egalitarian point of view, I guess it can be defended, but look at the location of Prairie Ridge High School.
It is close enough to Cary-Grove High School that those with Cary addresses near East Crystal Lake Avenue in Lake Kilarney were assigned to Prairie Ridge when it opened.
And, it certainly isn’t a world apart from Crystal Lake Central and Crystal Lake South.
Now, District 155 have a combined swim team that practices at the YMCA.
It would be hard to argue that the team could not easily have beeen transported to Prairie Ridge for practice.
So, that leaves gym class.
Prairie Grove students would have been able to take gym in a pool, while those attending the other high schools wouldn’t have been able to do so.
Inequality of instruction, then.
Why post this w/o substaintial proof to back up your claim? “I have been told one or more parents” doesn’t mean something concrete had been in the works. I’m sure D155 would have realized that a pool would have benefited their swim program. Even though PR parents are generally regarded as being “better off”, the cost of a pool would be exorbitant – plus what about added insurance costs the district would take on as a result?
I checked online for the D155 Board of Ed agenda for their June 15th meeting – imagine mu surprise when your FOI request for emails concerning the supposed offer of a “free pool” was denied because “no document exists to satisfy this request.” They told you they had nothing and yet you still think your unnamed, vague sources are giving you credible info??
Here’s what I think: someone is ticked off that the district won’t build PR a pool and told you something completely outrageous – like the school board had turned down a free pool – in order to generate sympathy/outrage for their cause. But posting something like what you did without any other proof besides “I’ve been told . . .” is ludicrous and gives you all the credibility of a sixth-grader passing rumors at the lunch table.
I have heard that South was built with a pool which they filled in due to this same conflict. It is ridiculous that the school pays anyway to rent the Y times and even at that they don’t really have home meets
Where I grew up we took swimming for gym. When I lived in Germany every student in elementary school was bussed to a local pool for a semester so that every student was assured of the ability to swim safely at the very least.There are definitely other school district where one pool exists but everybody swims there and there is no conflict. Maybe the district has made this an issue when it really wouldn’t matter to the students and parents? You would just bus them after school to the facility.
Love the credibility ofa a 6th grader remark. haha You don’t sound ticked off to me, merely posing a question.
While I am confident of my source concerning Prairie Ridge, whether or not there is a paper trail, South School was built with state money while I was state representative.
I have heard nothing about a pool there.
In the same time period, the state-subsidized McHenry West was built with a pool.
If cost is the issue for an indoor pool, maybe a retractable pool enclosure maybe the answer.
If equality of facility is demanded at each and every CL school then that should be strictly enforced from the type of desks used, specification, brand and quantity of the computers available, the cafeteria menu, course offerings and everything else within each school. If they aren’t all exactly the same and availbable at each school then none of the schools should have them. That will surely fix everything!! IDIOTS