Arlington proposing to close county gymnastics program

[Anonymous]

This is a wake up call. The long tenure for appointed County Manager is symptomatic of the elected Board's near total delegation of everything to unelected County Staff and their agendas. There is no accountability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope for everyone some transparent financial information is provided to the community about all the cost recovery programs. If anything good is going to come from this, that will be it. I am interested to see it.

In addition to providing last year's costs, they really need to explain why the program used to recover its costs and it doesn't now. What changed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you sign your kids up for a county sport or class or summer camp, do you email the county to ask them what portion of their costs are being recovered by the fees you are paying? I'm guessing you don't. That information hasn't been shared with gymnastics parents either. The county sets the fees. We pay the fees they charge. Gymnastics parents haven't been taking advantage of anyone. All of this has been determined by the county and they're the only ones with the information about fee recovery.

After this was proposed, not even a whole week ago, gymnastics parents asked the county to share this information and it still hasn't been shared by the county manager. We also know that swim doesn't recover its fees, but that information hasn't been provided in any detail either. The only thing we know is that the county is making a payment of 800k towards Long Bridge next year. It's awfully smug of you to accuse anyone of taking advantage of anything without having more information.

You couldn't figure out having nearly an entire facility built out and dedicated to your competitive sport alone and coaches employed by the county was kind of a sweetheart setup?

I'll be honest and say my kid did AAC for a couple years and when I realized the setup and saw the price (it's a lot cheaper than private clubs) I was immediately thinking....wow this is weird. I thought it was strange the swim coaches had arlington county email addresses. And I thought it was kind of a racket and said it to people. So yeah, don't mind if the swim team is being called out and not shocked at all to hear it.

Honestly, historically the gymnastics program has made money. That's one of the reasons it was expanded in 2017. It sounds like an only recent years it hasn't been recovering its fees, and there's plenty of demand for the program to cover its own costs. So yeah I never really gave it a thought. I spent far more time and thought dealing with waitlists just trying to get my kid in anywhere because gymnastics is so oversubscribed.

The prices for private competitive gymnastics programs aren't particularly public. Most require that you reach out and have a conversation with someone and I've never done that. Many of the other programs also aren't apples to apples with Barcroft because they offer more extravagant travel or have fancier uniforms or have more/better coaches or have longer practice hours, etc. It's not that easy to just compare.

I can see how the operating yearly budget portion of the gymnastics program could make money. But the decision from the County to build out a facility to this extent for such a specialized sport and spend millions on it is a baffling decision to me and I would be curious to hear if there was even any debate about that at the time. Do these types of facilities exist at a local government level in other places? Maybe this is normal. As many people have pointed out, a pool is a different investment for the community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a wake up call. The long tenure for appointed County Manager is symptomatic of the elected Board's near total delegation of everything to unelected County Staff and their agendas. There is no accountability.

This is how a County Manager form of government works. The person is supposed to run the government. That's how the whole thing is set up.

I can't even tell if you're blaming the County Board or the County Manger.

There is accountability. It's called election day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you sign your kids up for a county sport or class or summer camp, do you email the county to ask them what portion of their costs are being recovered by the fees you are paying? I'm guessing you don't. That information hasn't been shared with gymnastics parents either. The county sets the fees. We pay the fees they charge. Gymnastics parents haven't been taking advantage of anyone. All of this has been determined by the county and they're the only ones with the information about fee recovery.

After this was proposed, not even a whole week ago, gymnastics parents asked the county to share this information and it still hasn't been shared by the county manager. We also know that swim doesn't recover its fees, but that information hasn't been provided in any detail either. The only thing we know is that the county is making a payment of 800k towards Long Bridge next year. It's awfully smug of you to accuse anyone of taking advantage of anything without having more information.

You couldn't figure out having nearly an entire facility built out and dedicated to your competitive sport alone and coaches employed by the county was kind of a sweetheart setup?

I'll be honest and say my kid did AAC for a couple years and when I realized the setup and saw the price (it's a lot cheaper than private clubs) I was immediately thinking....wow this is weird. I thought it was strange the swim coaches had arlington county email addresses. And I thought it was kind of a racket and said it to people. So yeah, don't mind if the swim team is being called out and not shocked at all to hear it.

Honestly, historically the gymnastics program has made money. That's one of the reasons it was expanded in 2017. It sounds like an only recent years it hasn't been recovering its fees, and there's plenty of demand for the program to cover its own costs. So yeah I never really gave it a thought. I spent far more time and thought dealing with waitlists just trying to get my kid in anywhere because gymnastics is so oversubscribed.

The prices for private competitive gymnastics programs aren't particularly public. Most require that you reach out and have a conversation with someone and I've never done that. Many of the other programs also aren't apples to apples with Barcroft because they offer more extravagant travel or have fancier uniforms or have more/better coaches or have longer practice hours, etc. It's not that easy to just compare.

I can see how the operating yearly budget portion of the gymnastics program could make money. But the decision from the County to build out a facility to this extent for such a specialized sport and spend millions on it is a baffling decision to me and I would be curious to hear if there was even any debate about that at the time. Do these types of facilities exist at a local government level in other places? Maybe this is normal. As many people have pointed out, a pool is a different investment for the community.

If the program was covering its own costs and it is historic remnant, does it really matter how it came to be? It's benefiting the community and is a quality program. It's apparently been in place for almost 50 years which is far longer than I've been in Arlington resident.

I grew up in a place that had no public pools, no gymnastics, no county summer camps, no nature centers, and was missing a lot of other nice things that Arlington has, but I don't know why that is the right decision over the county sponsoring a program that recovers its costs (or even a program that decides to subsidize some costs, as I could see it making sense for the county to subsidize costs for low income gymnasts or adaptive gymnasts, depending on priorities.).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you sign your kids up for a county sport or class or summer camp, do you email the county to ask them what portion of their costs are being recovered by the fees you are paying? I'm guessing you don't. That information hasn't been shared with gymnastics parents either. The county sets the fees. We pay the fees they charge. Gymnastics parents haven't been taking advantage of anyone. All of this has been determined by the county and they're the only ones with the information about fee recovery.

After this was proposed, not even a whole week ago, gymnastics parents asked the county to share this information and it still hasn't been shared by the county manager. We also know that swim doesn't recover its fees, but that information hasn't been provided in any detail either. The only thing we know is that the county is making a payment of 800k towards Long Bridge next year. It's awfully smug of you to accuse anyone of taking advantage of anything without having more information.

You couldn't figure out having nearly an entire facility built out and dedicated to your competitive sport alone and coaches employed by the county was kind of a sweetheart setup?

I'll be honest and say my kid did AAC for a couple years and when I realized the setup and saw the price (it's a lot cheaper than private clubs) I was immediately thinking....wow this is weird. I thought it was strange the swim coaches had arlington county email addresses. And I thought it was kind of a racket and said it to people. So yeah, don't mind if the swim team is being called out and not shocked at all to hear it.

Honestly, historically the gymnastics program has made money. That's one of the reasons it was expanded in 2017. It sounds like an only recent years it hasn't been recovering its fees, and there's plenty of demand for the program to cover its own costs. So yeah I never really gave it a thought. I spent far more time and thought dealing with waitlists just trying to get my kid in anywhere because gymnastics is so oversubscribed.

The prices for private competitive gymnastics programs aren't particularly public. Most require that you reach out and have a conversation with someone and I've never done that. Many of the other programs also aren't apples to apples with Barcroft because they offer more extravagant travel or have fancier uniforms or have more/better coaches or have longer practice hours, etc. It's not that easy to just compare.

I can see how the operating yearly budget portion of the gymnastics program could make money. But the decision from the County to build out a facility to this extent for such a specialized sport and spend millions on it is a baffling decision to me and I would be curious to hear if there was even any debate about that at the time. Do these types of facilities exist at a local government level in other places? Maybe this is normal. As many people have pointed out, a pool is a different investment for the community.

If the program was covering its own costs and it is historic remnant, does it really matter how it came to be? It's benefiting the community and is a quality program. It's apparently been in place for almost 50 years which is far longer than I've been in Arlington resident.

I grew up in a place that had no public pools, no gymnastics, no county summer camps, no nature centers, and was missing a lot of other nice things that Arlington has, but I don't know why that is the right decision over the county sponsoring a program that recovers its costs (or even a program that decides to subsidize some costs, as I could see it making sense for the county to subsidize costs for low income gymnasts or adaptive gymnasts, depending on priorities.).

The facility could be re-purposed and benefit a lot more people. Sounds like before it did serve more people with indoor soccer and basektball. My kid happens to play indoor soccer at the Gunston bubble and it sucks in there. It's super cold in the winter and can't be properly heated. They also have to cut off registration for that recreational league, which is popular. I'm guessing because the only place to play is Gunston bubble.

I'm not a fan of it's been this way for 50 years so it should stay that way though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you sign your kids up for a county sport or class or summer camp, do you email the county to ask them what portion of their costs are being recovered by the fees you are paying? I'm guessing you don't. That information hasn't been shared with gymnastics parents either. The county sets the fees. We pay the fees they charge. Gymnastics parents haven't been taking advantage of anyone. All of this has been determined by the county and they're the only ones with the information about fee recovery.

After this was proposed, not even a whole week ago, gymnastics parents asked the county to share this information and it still hasn't been shared by the county manager. We also know that swim doesn't recover its fees, but that information hasn't been provided in any detail either. The only thing we know is that the county is making a payment of 800k towards Long Bridge next year. It's awfully smug of you to accuse anyone of taking advantage of anything without having more information.

You couldn't figure out having nearly an entire facility built out and dedicated to your competitive sport alone and coaches employed by the county was kind of a sweetheart setup?

I'll be honest and say my kid did AAC for a couple years and when I realized the setup and saw the price (it's a lot cheaper than private clubs) I was immediately thinking....wow this is weird. I thought it was strange the swim coaches had arlington county email addresses. And I thought it was kind of a racket and said it to people. So yeah, don't mind if the swim team is being called out and not shocked at all to hear it.

Did someone from gymnastics hurt you? There is no free ride or taking advantage of tax payers.

I've been watching this all unfold and it's been made clear numerous times that the facility isn't just for compettive gymnastics, lots of communities are served by teh facility and all the groups use things like the pit. You just refuse to pay attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a wake up call. The long tenure for appointed County Manager is symptomatic of the elected Board's near total delegation of everything to unelected County Staff and their agendas. There is no accountability.

zero accountability

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you sign your kids up for a county sport or class or summer camp, do you email the county to ask them what portion of their costs are being recovered by the fees you are paying? I'm guessing you don't. That information hasn't been shared with gymnastics parents either. The county sets the fees. We pay the fees they charge. Gymnastics parents haven't been taking advantage of anyone. All of this has been determined by the county and they're the only ones with the information about fee recovery.

After this was proposed, not even a whole week ago, gymnastics parents asked the county to share this information and it still hasn't been shared by the county manager. We also know that swim doesn't recover its fees, but that information hasn't been provided in any detail either. The only thing we know is that the county is making a payment of 800k towards Long Bridge next year. It's awfully smug of you to accuse anyone of taking advantage of anything without having more information.

You couldn't figure out having nearly an entire facility built out and dedicated to your competitive sport alone and coaches employed by the county was kind of a sweetheart setup?

I'll be honest and say my kid did AAC for a couple years and when I realized the setup and saw the price (it's a lot cheaper than private clubs) I was immediately thinking....wow this is weird. I thought it was strange the swim coaches had arlington county email addresses. And I thought it was kind of a racket and said it to people. So yeah, don't mind if the swim team is being called out and not shocked at all to hear it.

Did someone from gymnastics hurt you? There is no free ride or taking advantage of tax payers.

I've been watching this all unfold and it's been made clear numerous times that the facility isn't just for compettive gymnastics, lots of communities are served by teh facility and all the groups use things like the pit. You just refuse to pay attention.

Neither of you are right on this. Not you or previous poster. The facility would not need to exist at that scale or with that level of equipment if not for the competitive team. And yes, there are other kids using it outside of the competitive team. A rec and adaptive gymnastics program could use a far more scaled down space. Easily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you sign your kids up for a county sport or class or summer camp, do you email the county to ask them what portion of their costs are being recovered by the fees you are paying? I'm guessing you don't. That information hasn't been shared with gymnastics parents either. The county sets the fees. We pay the fees they charge. Gymnastics parents haven't been taking advantage of anyone. All of this has been determined by the county and they're the only ones with the information about fee recovery.

After this was proposed, not even a whole week ago, gymnastics parents asked the county to share this information and it still hasn't been shared by the county manager. We also know that swim doesn't recover its fees, but that information hasn't been provided in any detail either. The only thing we know is that the county is making a payment of 800k towards Long Bridge next year. It's awfully smug of you to accuse anyone of taking advantage of anything without having more information.

You couldn't figure out having nearly an entire facility built out and dedicated to your competitive sport alone and coaches employed by the county was kind of a sweetheart setup?

I'll be honest and say my kid did AAC for a couple years and when I realized the setup and saw the price (it's a lot cheaper than private clubs) I was immediately thinking....wow this is weird. I thought it was strange the swim coaches had arlington county email addresses. And I thought it was kind of a racket and said it to people. So yeah, don't mind if the swim team is being called out and not shocked at all to hear it.

Honestly, historically the gymnastics program has made money. That's one of the reasons it was expanded in 2017. It sounds like an only recent years it hasn't been recovering its fees, and there's plenty of demand for the program to cover its own costs. So yeah I never really gave it a thought. I spent far more time and thought dealing with waitlists just trying to get my kid in anywhere because gymnastics is so oversubscribed.

The prices for private competitive gymnastics programs aren't particularly public. Most require that you reach out and have a conversation with someone and I've never done that. Many of the other programs also aren't apples to apples with Barcroft because they offer more extravagant travel or have fancier uniforms or have more/better coaches or have longer practice hours, etc. It's not that easy to just compare.

I can see how the operating yearly budget portion of the gymnastics program could make money. But the decision from the County to build out a facility to this extent for such a specialized sport and spend millions on it is a baffling decision to me and I would be curious to hear if there was even any debate about that at the time. Do these types of facilities exist at a local government level in other places? Maybe this is normal. As many people have pointed out, a pool is a different investment for the community.

If the program was covering its own costs and it is historic remnant, does it really matter how it came to be? It's benefiting the community and is a quality program. It's apparently been in place for almost 50 years which is far longer than I've been in Arlington resident.

I grew up in a place that had no public pools, no gymnastics, no county summer camps, no nature centers, and was missing a lot of other nice things that Arlington has, but I don't know why that is the right decision over the county sponsoring a program that recovers its costs (or even a program that decides to subsidize some costs, as I could see it making sense for the county to subsidize costs for low income gymnasts or adaptive gymnasts, depending on priorities.).

The facility could be re-purposed and benefit a lot more people. Sounds like before it did serve more people with indoor soccer and basektball. My kid happens to play indoor soccer at the Gunston bubble and it sucks in there. It's super cold in the winter and can't be properly heated. They also have to cut off registration for that recreational league, which is popular. I'm guessing because the only place to play is Gunston bubble.

I'm not a fan of it's been this way for 50 years so it should stay that way though.

There are already tons of county ready sources dedicated to soccer. Tons and tons of fields. There's no reason I need to take a single facility from gymnasts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can ALWAYS tell , where they don't have their own children in these programs. It's ALWAYS easier to cut something that, doesn't AFFECT your Own child.

Of course we all react when thing affect our own children. People should be more capable of realizing things may be disappointing for themselves and their children, and also make sense in the bigger picture or be something that needs to happen for the greater good. This chip is missing in many an Arlington parent however and what leads to such horrible and toxic school boundary arguments.

In any case, I really do hope the outcome of this is Arlington requires parents of kid on any kind of competitive, non-recreational team being run out of the County to pay full cost. And they should be transparent to everyone what that full cost is.

Competitive parents are happy to pay for 100% cost recovery although we have no idea what that looks like as we havent been provided the data yet.

For what it is worst we have offered to purchase equipment and have been rejected by the county. We do pay for coach training, clinics, clothing, uniforms, etc.

We'll see if you are happy about it when you see the cost.

DP here - Why keep jabbing? You obviously aren't a parent of an athlete on the team. If the parents are saying they are willing to pay, there is no reason for you to still be nasty to them. Maybe some will find it cost prohibitive and others won't. You don't know and gain nothing by trying to fight with them. There is a huge community benefit beyond team and people feel passionate about trying to save Barcroft. The county board members are saying they want options and seem to be listening to the community. It seems like this was a major error on the part of the CM and it hurt a lot of people uneccessarily.

Because there is zero acknowledgement that you all are getting and have been getting a huge free ride from taxpayers and this team should not be run out of the county at all. Instead it's just a pity party. Figure out how to spin off and run your own gymnastics team. Please, even if you are saved and I think you will be with certainty, you should do this. Because this will always be a target and it should be. It's not right. I feel the same about the swim team. Proactively do the right thing.

And I'm not talking about rec gymanstics, which should exist and be offered and not subsidize your team.

Can you please explain why you think we are getting a free ride? You do understand families pay fees to be in the competitive fees. Families pay between 4k and 9k Again, We used to be at 118% cost recovery. I dont know what we are at now. So for a while we made the county extra money and they had to issue refunds. We havent been fighting the county on fees and would be happy to be at 100% cost recovery.

Also it is closed the rec program and adaptive gymnastics. As far as I know there is no other programs offered in private gyms for teens and adults with special needs.

I'm basing it off what the County Manager said in the Saturday meeting at the end and even just the idea this giant portion of a County facility which is single use and has special equipment only competitive gymnasts would use exists at all. I am a parent of older kids in APS and I think some of my reaction is just frustration of the entitlement I see at times from some parents who just relentlessly advocate for their own interests/kids above all else, every single time. And know every button to push and lever to pull. I've been through a lot of boundary/school closure wars. So I'm probably taking it out on this issue. I will stop posting.

It is certainly okay to be frustrated! I just want to make sure the process is fair. Gymnastics probably saved my kids life so I am passionate about it. But that doesn't mean that i don't support other issues. Many of us are passionate about many issues and we certainly arent trying to destroy any other progeam to keep ours. We would just like transparency and we would like to explore opportunities with the county to increase revenue.

The county manager really has not more clear how that number is broken down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you sign your kids up for a county sport or class or summer camp, do you email the county to ask them what portion of their costs are being recovered by the fees you are paying? I'm guessing you don't. That information hasn't been shared with gymnastics parents either. The county sets the fees. We pay the fees they charge. Gymnastics parents haven't been taking advantage of anyone. All of this has been determined by the county and they're the only ones with the information about fee recovery.

After this was proposed, not even a whole week ago, gymnastics parents asked the county to share this information and it still hasn't been shared by the county manager. We also know that swim doesn't recover its fees, but that information hasn't been provided in any detail either. The only thing we know is that the county is making a payment of 800k towards Long Bridge next year. It's awfully smug of you to accuse anyone of taking advantage of anything without having more information.

You couldn't figure out having nearly an entire facility built out and dedicated to your competitive sport alone and coaches employed by the county was kind of a sweetheart setup?

I'll be honest and say my kid did AAC for a couple years and when I realized the setup and saw the price (it's a lot cheaper than private clubs) I was immediately thinking....wow this is weird. I thought it was strange the swim coaches had arlington county email addresses. And I thought it was kind of a racket and said it to people. So yeah, don't mind if the swim team is being called out and not shocked at all to hear it.

Honestly, historically the gymnastics program has made money. That's one of the reasons it was expanded in 2017. It sounds like an only recent years it hasn't been recovering its fees, and there's plenty of demand for the program to cover its own costs. So yeah I never really gave it a thought. I spent far more time and thought dealing with waitlists just trying to get my kid in anywhere because gymnastics is so oversubscribed.

The prices for private competitive gymnastics programs aren't particularly public. Most require that you reach out and have a conversation with someone and I've never done that. Many of the other programs also aren't apples to apples with Barcroft because they offer more extravagant travel or have fancier uniforms or have more/better coaches or have longer practice hours, etc. It's not that easy to just compare.

I can see how the operating yearly budget portion of the gymnastics program could make money. But the decision from the County to build out a facility to this extent for such a specialized sport and spend millions on it is a baffling decision to me and I would be curious to hear if there was even any debate about that at the time. Do these types of facilities exist at a local government level in other places? Maybe this is normal. As many people have pointed out, a pool is a different investment for the community.

If the program was covering its own costs and it is historic remnant, does it really matter how it came to be? It's benefiting the community and is a quality program. It's apparently been in place for almost 50 years which is far longer than I've been in Arlington resident.

I grew up in a place that had no public pools, no gymnastics, no county summer camps, no nature centers, and was missing a lot of other nice things that Arlington has, but I don't know why that is the right decision over the county sponsoring a program that recovers its costs (or even a program that decides to subsidize some costs, as I could see it making sense for the county to subsidize costs for low income gymnasts or adaptive gymnasts, depending on priorities.).

The facility could be re-purposed and benefit a lot more people. Sounds like before it did serve more people with indoor soccer and basektball. My kid happens to play indoor soccer at the Gunston bubble and it sucks in there. It's super cold in the winter and can't be properly heated. They also have to cut off registration for that recreational league, which is popular. I'm guessing because the only place to play is Gunston bubble.

I'm not a fan of it's been this way for 50 years so it should stay that way though.

There are already tons of county ready sources dedicated to soccer. Tons and tons of fields. There's no reason I need to take a single facility from gymnasts.

We do have a lot of private and public soccer fields. That isnt the case with gymnastics. Also fields are mostly empty during the day whereas barcroft is full open to close serving nearly 1000 kids per session.

Not including summer camp!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you sign your kids up for a county sport or class or summer camp, do you email the county to ask them what portion of their costs are being recovered by the fees you are paying? I'm guessing you don't. That information hasn't been shared with gymnastics parents either. The county sets the fees. We pay the fees they charge. Gymnastics parents haven't been taking advantage of anyone. All of this has been determined by the county and they're the only ones with the information about fee recovery.

After this was proposed, not even a whole week ago, gymnastics parents asked the county to share this information and it still hasn't been shared by the county manager. We also know that swim doesn't recover its fees, but that information hasn't been provided in any detail either. The only thing we know is that the county is making a payment of 800k towards Long Bridge next year. It's awfully smug of you to accuse anyone of taking advantage of anything without having more information.

You couldn't figure out having nearly an entire facility built out and dedicated to your competitive sport alone and coaches employed by the county was kind of a sweetheart setup?

I'll be honest and say my kid did AAC for a couple years and when I realized the setup and saw the price (it's a lot cheaper than private clubs) I was immediately thinking....wow this is weird. I thought it was strange the swim coaches had arlington county email addresses. And I thought it was kind of a racket and said it to people. So yeah, don't mind if the swim team is being called out and not shocked at all to hear it.

Honestly, historically the gymnastics program has made money. That's one of the reasons it was expanded in 2017. It sounds like an only recent years it hasn't been recovering its fees, and there's plenty of demand for the program to cover its own costs. So yeah I never really gave it a thought. I spent far more time and thought dealing with waitlists just trying to get my kid in anywhere because gymnastics is so oversubscribed.

The prices for private competitive gymnastics programs aren't particularly public. Most require that you reach out and have a conversation with someone and I've never done that. Many of the other programs also aren't apples to apples with Barcroft because they offer more extravagant travel or have fancier uniforms or have more/better coaches or have longer practice hours, etc. It's not that easy to just compare.

I can see how the operating yearly budget portion of the gymnastics program could make money. But the decision from the County to build out a facility to this extent for such a specialized sport and spend millions on it is a baffling decision to me and I would be curious to hear if there was even any debate about that at the time. Do these types of facilities exist at a local government level in other places? Maybe this is normal. As many people have pointed out, a pool is a different investment for the community.

If the program was covering its own costs and it is historic remnant, does it really matter how it came to be? It's benefiting the community and is a quality program. It's apparently been in place for almost 50 years which is far longer than I've been in Arlington resident.

I grew up in a place that had no public pools, no gymnastics, no county summer camps, no nature centers, and was missing a lot of other nice things that Arlington has, but I don't know why that is the right decision over the county sponsoring a program that recovers its costs (or even a program that decides to subsidize some costs, as I could see it making sense for the county to subsidize costs for low income gymnasts or adaptive gymnasts, depending on priorities.).

The facility could be re-purposed and benefit a lot more people. Sounds like before it did serve more people with indoor soccer and basektball. My kid happens to play indoor soccer at the Gunston bubble and it sucks in there. It's super cold in the winter and can't be properly heated. They also have to cut off registration for that recreational league, which is popular. I'm guessing because the only place to play is Gunston bubble.

I'm not a fan of it's been this way for 50 years so it should stay that way though.

There are already tons of county ready sources dedicated to soccer. Tons and tons of fields. There's no reason I need to take a single facility from gymnasts.

We do have a lot of private and public soccer fields. That isnt the case with gymnastics. Also fields are mostly empty during the day whereas barcroft is full open to close serving nearly 1000 kids per session.

Not including summer camp!

Fields and an indoor facility not the same thing AT ALL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you sign your kids up for a county sport or class or summer camp, do you email the county to ask them what portion of their costs are being recovered by the fees you are paying? I'm guessing you don't. That information hasn't been shared with gymnastics parents either. The county sets the fees. We pay the fees they charge. Gymnastics parents haven't been taking advantage of anyone. All of this has been determined by the county and they're the only ones with the information about fee recovery.

After this was proposed, not even a whole week ago, gymnastics parents asked the county to share this information and it still hasn't been shared by the county manager. We also know that swim doesn't recover its fees, but that information hasn't been provided in any detail either. The only thing we know is that the county is making a payment of 800k towards Long Bridge next year. It's awfully smug of you to accuse anyone of taking advantage of anything without having more information.

You couldn't figure out having nearly an entire facility built out and dedicated to your competitive sport alone and coaches employed by the county was kind of a sweetheart setup?

I'll be honest and say my kid did AAC for a couple years and when I realized the setup and saw the price (it's a lot cheaper than private clubs) I was immediately thinking....wow this is weird. I thought it was strange the swim coaches had arlington county email addresses. And I thought it was kind of a racket and said it to people. So yeah, don't mind if the swim team is being called out and not shocked at all to hear it.

Honestly, historically the gymnastics program has made money. That's one of the reasons it was expanded in 2017. It sounds like an only recent years it hasn't been recovering its fees, and there's plenty of demand for the program to cover its own costs. So yeah I never really gave it a thought. I spent far more time and thought dealing with waitlists just trying to get my kid in anywhere because gymnastics is so oversubscribed.

The prices for private competitive gymnastics programs aren't particularly public. Most require that you reach out and have a conversation with someone and I've never done that. Many of the other programs also aren't apples to apples with Barcroft because they offer more extravagant travel or have fancier uniforms or have more/better coaches or have longer practice hours, etc. It's not that easy to just compare.

I can see how the operating yearly budget portion of the gymnastics program could make money. But the decision from the County to build out a facility to this extent for such a specialized sport and spend millions on it is a baffling decision to me and I would be curious to hear if there was even any debate about that at the time. Do these types of facilities exist at a local government level in other places? Maybe this is normal. As many people have pointed out, a pool is a different investment for the community.

If the program was covering its own costs and it is historic remnant, does it really matter how it came to be? It's benefiting the community and is a quality program. It's apparently been in place for almost 50 years which is far longer than I've been in Arlington resident.

I grew up in a place that had no public pools, no gymnastics, no county summer camps, no nature centers, and was missing a lot of other nice things that Arlington has, but I don't know why that is the right decision over the county sponsoring a program that recovers its costs (or even a program that decides to subsidize some costs, as I could see it making sense for the county to subsidize costs for low income gymnasts or adaptive gymnasts, depending on priorities.).

The facility could be re-purposed and benefit a lot more people. Sounds like before it did serve more people with indoor soccer and basektball. My kid happens to play indoor soccer at the Gunston bubble and it sucks in there. It's super cold in the winter and can't be properly heated. They also have to cut off registration for that recreational league, which is popular. I'm guessing because the only place to play is Gunston bubble.

I'm not a fan of it's been this way for 50 years so it should stay that way though.

There are already tons of county ready sources dedicated to soccer. Tons and tons of fields. There's no reason I need to take a single facility from gymnasts.

We do have a lot of private and public soccer fields. That isnt the case with gymnastics. Also fields are mostly empty during the day whereas barcroft is full open to close serving nearly 1000 kids per session.

Not including summer camp!

I realize not everyone knows this but futsal, soccer, and indoor soccer are actually all different. Not interchangeable. Different rules, different goal sizes, different field sizes. Different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you sign your kids up for a county sport or class or summer camp, do you email the county to ask them what portion of their costs are being recovered by the fees you are paying? I'm guessing you don't. That information hasn't been shared with gymnastics parents either. The county sets the fees. We pay the fees they charge. Gymnastics parents haven't been taking advantage of anyone. All of this has been determined by the county and they're the only ones with the information about fee recovery.

After this was proposed, not even a whole week ago, gymnastics parents asked the county to share this information and it still hasn't been shared by the county manager. We also know that swim doesn't recover its fees, but that information hasn't been provided in any detail either. The only thing we know is that the county is making a payment of 800k towards Long Bridge next year. It's awfully smug of you to accuse anyone of taking advantage of anything without having more information.

You couldn't figure out having nearly an entire facility built out and dedicated to your competitive sport alone and coaches employed by the county was kind of a sweetheart setup?

I'll be honest and say my kid did AAC for a couple years and when I realized the setup and saw the price (it's a lot cheaper than private clubs) I was immediately thinking....wow this is weird. I thought it was strange the swim coaches had arlington county email addresses. And I thought it was kind of a racket and said it to people. So yeah, don't mind if the swim team is being called out and not shocked at all to hear it.

Honestly, historically the gymnastics program has made money. That's one of the reasons it was expanded in 2017. It sounds like an only recent years it hasn't been recovering its fees, and there's plenty of demand for the program to cover its own costs. So yeah I never really gave it a thought. I spent far more time and thought dealing with waitlists just trying to get my kid in anywhere because gymnastics is so oversubscribed.

The prices for private competitive gymnastics programs aren't particularly public. Most require that you reach out and have a conversation with someone and I've never done that. Many of the other programs also aren't apples to apples with Barcroft because they offer more extravagant travel or have fancier uniforms or have more/better coaches or have longer practice hours, etc. It's not that easy to just compare.

I can see how the operating yearly budget portion of the gymnastics program could make money. But the decision from the County to build out a facility to this extent for such a specialized sport and spend millions on it is a baffling decision to me and I would be curious to hear if there was even any debate about that at the time. Do these types of facilities exist at a local government level in other places? Maybe this is normal. As many people have pointed out, a pool is a different investment for the community.

Stafford also has a county run Gymnastics program and competitive team. I havent had time to check out others.