Arlington proposing to close county gymnastics program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of a county providing a competitive gymnastics team like a private gym team! I'm surprised to hear this is something available in Arlington.

I’ve also never heard of a county subsidizing a competitive swim team, building a new community boathouse, or providing county space rent-free to a Tony-award winning theater.

If Arlington needs to cut recreation costs, why not stop work on the boathouse for another year or two and increase costs for competitive swim and competitive gymnastics?

This is targeted at Signature? The county has a lot of self-interest in making Shirlington a destination. Keeps that whole area and the revenue it generates going if it’s a destination. Theater goers eat dinner beforehand or after etc. This is why governments support the arts and this is not the only location that’s done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of a county providing a competitive gymnastics team like a private gym team! I'm surprised to hear this is something available in Arlington.

It happens all over the country and with other sports, as well. The team still has fees. It's not free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of a county providing a competitive gymnastics team like a private gym team! I'm surprised to hear this is something available in Arlington.

It happens all over the country and with other sports, as well. The team still has fees. It's not free.

What are the other competitive/club teams run out of the county other than the swim team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stafford is the only other one that could be considered northern VA. The classes offered by Fairfax, Prince William, and Loudoun are on set up and take down basis in multi use areas.

Then there’s Sportsplax in PG county which is operated by parks and rec as far as the program. But obviously the building administration and initial capital was different from Barcroft. But my impression of strictly how the gymnastics program is run it seems very similar to Arlington.

Going farther north there are some others in Maryland I’m pretty sure. But I can’t name them off the top of my head.

Capital posts all their team tuition online, you can look it up. Arlington is well in range and more expensive in some cases. Tuition wise. Keep in mind these private teams have competitive “assessment fees” during the season of 1-2K total in addition to tuition. This covers coaching fees for meets and such. The team parent associations for Arlington also cover these fees, but I don’t know what the current fee level is there, and how it compares. From the county accounting perspective, they probably need to keep things separate but maybe more fees could be assessed at the county level to make up a salary gap, for instance. Again we don’t have any hard numbers (on the Arlington side) so it’s hard to say.

So this is not a standard offering for a local government is the answer.

Nature centers, a bike trail, and Long Bridge also aren't standard county offerings for pretty much anywhere. Arlington's an affluent community that has nice things.

Arlington is affluent but money is still finite and you still have to be able to justify expenditures. Nature centers serve educational purposes, not just at schools but for the general community, put on events for all ages, and help preserve green spaces. Is there a single public (or even private) school child in Arlington County who hasn't been through one of the nature centers and learned about hawks or owls or seen one up close for the first or only time? I doubt it. Bike trails are inexpensive to build and maintain, promote a healthy activity for all ages, and provide an alternative commuting method in a county with awful traffic. Long Bridge offers programming from birth to 80+, including foundational water safety classes, teaching an essential, life saving skill. It's a facility that is used pretty equally by kids, middle aged adults, and the elderly.

Now make the case for the Bancroft gymnastics program in a way that makes it as appealing or beneficial as the three other amenities you mentioned. If you can't do that in a way that is convincing for your fellow residents, then the program shouldn't exist.

It really just sounds like you're not familiar with the gymnastics program, which offers programming for toddlers, preschoolers, kids--all the way through high school--plus there's both an adaptive and an adult program (with a waitlist above 50 people). It's one of the only boys gymnastics programs in the area, something that's really hard to find. Gymnastics offers lots of health benefits including strength and balance training, flexibility, and overall health benefits. It's a very quality and popular program, with huge waitlists. A large number of kids in the county take at least one gymnastics class at some point in their childhood. The facility also serves as home to the Wakefield gymnastics team, making it equal with the programs provided at Yorktown and WL, as there's not a space for the Wakefield team to practice at Wakefield. On top of all this, there's a possibility for the program to cover its costs such that it's a resource for the community and not a burden. We just need to get the county manager and DPR on board with maximizing the facility and making sure it's being fully utilized.

And you can make claims about water safety and Long Bridge being necessary all you want, but there is absolutely no justification for the largesse that is that facility. We already had public pools in Arlington at each of the high schools. Long Bridge could have been a facility that benefited the whole community, but instead it was very focused on competitive swim, and it's continuing to eat up county funds with expensive repairs to a brand new facility and by running a loss.

+1 Long Bridge has high dives that I have seen used once or twice in many visits to the facility. I cannot imagine how much it costs to install, maintain, and insure these high dives, and it seems the actual use of the high dives is extraordinarily rare. How do these high dives benefit Arlington residents? The higher of the two is a type of board I’ve only ever seen in person at the USNA.

Does AAC have a competitive dive team? That would be the analogy here to gymnastics. I don’t know if they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stafford is the only other one that could be considered northern VA. The classes offered by Fairfax, Prince William, and Loudoun are on set up and take down basis in multi use areas.

Then there’s Sportsplax in PG county which is operated by parks and rec as far as the program. But obviously the building administration and initial capital was different from Barcroft. But my impression of strictly how the gymnastics program is run it seems very similar to Arlington.

Going farther north there are some others in Maryland I’m pretty sure. But I can’t name them off the top of my head.

Capital posts all their team tuition online, you can look it up. Arlington is well in range and more expensive in some cases. Tuition wise. Keep in mind these private teams have competitive “assessment fees” during the season of 1-2K total in addition to tuition. This covers coaching fees for meets and such. The team parent associations for Arlington also cover these fees, but I don’t know what the current fee level is there, and how it compares. From the county accounting perspective, they probably need to keep things separate but maybe more fees could be assessed at the county level to make up a salary gap, for instance. Again we don’t have any hard numbers (on the Arlington side) so it’s hard to say.

So this is not a standard offering for a local government is the answer.

Nature centers, a bike trail, and Long Bridge also aren't standard county offerings for pretty much anywhere. Arlington's an affluent community that has nice things.

Arlington is affluent but money is still finite and you still have to be able to justify expenditures. Nature centers serve educational purposes, not just at schools but for the general community, put on events for all ages, and help preserve green spaces. Is there a single public (or even private) school child in Arlington County who hasn't been through one of the nature centers and learned about hawks or owls or seen one up close for the first or only time? I doubt it. Bike trails are inexpensive to build and maintain, promote a healthy activity for all ages, and provide an alternative commuting method in a county with awful traffic. Long Bridge offers programming from birth to 80+, including foundational water safety classes, teaching an essential, life saving skill. It's a facility that is used pretty equally by kids, middle aged adults, and the elderly.

Now make the case for the Bancroft gymnastics program in a way that makes it as appealing or beneficial as the three other amenities you mentioned. If you can't do that in a way that is convincing for your fellow residents, then the program shouldn't exist.

It really just sounds like you're not familiar with the gymnastics program, which offers programming for toddlers, preschoolers, kids--all the way through high school--plus there's both an adaptive and an adult program (with a waitlist above 50 people). It's one of the only boys gymnastics programs in the area, something that's really hard to find. Gymnastics offers lots of health benefits including strength and balance training, flexibility, and overall health benefits. It's a very quality and popular program, with huge waitlists. A large number of kids in the county take at least one gymnastics class at some point in their childhood. The facility also serves as home to the Wakefield gymnastics team, making it equal with the programs provided at Yorktown and WL, as there's not a space for the Wakefield team to practice at Wakefield. On top of all this, there's a possibility for the program to cover its costs such that it's a resource for the community and not a burden. We just need to get the county manager and DPR on board with maximizing the facility and making sure it's being fully utilized.

And you can make claims about water safety and Long Bridge being necessary all you want, but there is absolutely no justification for the largesse that is that facility. We already had public pools in Arlington at each of the high schools. Long Bridge could have been a facility that benefited the whole community, but instead it was very focused on competitive swim, and it's continuing to eat up county funds with expensive repairs to a brand new facility and by running a loss.

+1 Long Bridge has high dives that I have seen used once or twice in many visits to the facility. I cannot imagine how much it costs to install, maintain, and insure these high dives, and it seems the actual use of the high dives is extraordinarily rare. How do these high dives benefit Arlington residents? The higher of the two is a type of board I’ve only ever seen in person at the USNA.

I think that's a fair point about the high dives. But I feel about them the same way I feel about Bancroft -- I don't really love my tax payer dollars being spent on expensive equipment for a niche sport, especially if that expensive equipment also requires constant maintenance, specialized coaching, and higher insurance costs.

So remove the high dives at Long Bridge (which I think is otherwise a really valuable facility that is used recreationally, daily, by a broad variety of county residents, not just the competitive swim team) and reconfigure Bancroft and the gymnastics program to focus on tumbling and all-ages fitness classes. I don't see the need for a specialty high dive at Long Bridge, and I don't see the need for a regulation competition vault and foam pit at Bancroft. Both are super niche equipment used only by a small number of fairly high level athletes in a sport that few people pursue at a high level. People who want to pursue sports at that level and within those niches can pay private facilities to do so.

I'm good with a rec gymnastics program and a rec swimming program. Also fine with those programs having competition teams if they can be done in a way that doesn't burden the county financially to support a small group of athletes. A competition swim team that just uses a pool that is also used for aquicize and water safety classes is fine with me. A bunch of permanent equipment that is ONLY used by the competition level gymnasts at Barcroft doesn't make sense to me. The rec classes and adult and gymnastics classes at Bancroft are not using all that equipment, simply because it would be too dangerous. If the competition team wants that equipment, they need to pay for it themselves, and pay to insure it. Same with the high dives.

[Anonymous]

^ my laptop keeps autocorrecting Barcroft to Bancroft. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stafford is the only other one that could be considered northern VA. The classes offered by Fairfax, Prince William, and Loudoun are on set up and take down basis in multi use areas.

Then there’s Sportsplax in PG county which is operated by parks and rec as far as the program. But obviously the building administration and initial capital was different from Barcroft. But my impression of strictly how the gymnastics program is run it seems very similar to Arlington.

Going farther north there are some others in Maryland I’m pretty sure. But I can’t name them off the top of my head.

Capital posts all their team tuition online, you can look it up. Arlington is well in range and more expensive in some cases. Tuition wise. Keep in mind these private teams have competitive “assessment fees” during the season of 1-2K total in addition to tuition. This covers coaching fees for meets and such. The team parent associations for Arlington also cover these fees, but I don’t know what the current fee level is there, and how it compares. From the county accounting perspective, they probably need to keep things separate but maybe more fees could be assessed at the county level to make up a salary gap, for instance. Again we don’t have any hard numbers (on the Arlington side) so it’s hard to say.

So this is not a standard offering for a local government is the answer.

Nature centers, a bike trail, and Long Bridge also aren't standard county offerings for pretty much anywhere. Arlington's an affluent community that has nice things.

Arlington is affluent but money is still finite and you still have to be able to justify expenditures. Nature centers serve educational purposes, not just at schools but for the general community, put on events for all ages, and help preserve green spaces. Is there a single public (or even private) school child in Arlington County who hasn't been through one of the nature centers and learned about hawks or owls or seen one up close for the first or only time? I doubt it. Bike trails are inexpensive to build and maintain, promote a healthy activity for all ages, and provide an alternative commuting method in a county with awful traffic. Long Bridge offers programming from birth to 80+, including foundational water safety classes, teaching an essential, life saving skill. It's a facility that is used pretty equally by kids, middle aged adults, and the elderly.

Now make the case for the Bancroft gymnastics program in a way that makes it as appealing or beneficial as the three other amenities you mentioned. If you can't do that in a way that is convincing for your fellow residents, then the program shouldn't exist.

It really just sounds like you're not familiar with the gymnastics program, which offers programming for toddlers, preschoolers, kids--all the way through high school--plus there's both an adaptive and an adult program (with a waitlist above 50 people). It's one of the only boys gymnastics programs in the area, something that's really hard to find. Gymnastics offers lots of health benefits including strength and balance training, flexibility, and overall health benefits. It's a very quality and popular program, with huge waitlists. A large number of kids in the county take at least one gymnastics class at some point in their childhood. The facility also serves as home to the Wakefield gymnastics team, making it equal with the programs provided at Yorktown and WL, as there's not a space for the Wakefield team to practice at Wakefield. On top of all this, there's a possibility for the program to cover its costs such that it's a resource for the community and not a burden. We just need to get the county manager and DPR on board with maximizing the facility and making sure it's being fully utilized.

And you can make claims about water safety and Long Bridge being necessary all you want, but there is absolutely no justification for the largesse that is that facility. We already had public pools in Arlington at each of the high schools. Long Bridge could have been a facility that benefited the whole community, but instead it was very focused on competitive swim, and it's continuing to eat up county funds with expensive repairs to a brand new facility and by running a loss.

+1 Long Bridge has high dives that I have seen used once or twice in many visits to the facility. I cannot imagine how much it costs to install, maintain, and insure these high dives, and it seems the actual use of the high dives is extraordinarily rare. How do these high dives benefit Arlington residents? The higher of the two is a type of board I’ve only ever seen in person at the USNA.

Does AAC have a competitive dive team? That would be the analogy here to gymnastics. I don’t know if they do.

They do not.

[Anonymous]

I'm good with a rec gymnastics program and a rec swimming program. Also fine with those programs having competition teams if they can be done in a way that doesn't burden the county financially to support a small group of athletes. A competition swim team that just uses a pool that is also used for aquicize and water safety classes is fine with me. A bunch of permanent equipment that is ONLY used by the competition level gymnasts at Barcroft doesn't make sense to me. The rec classes and adult and gymnastics classes at Bancroft are not using all that equipment, simply because it would be too dangerous. If the competition team wants that equipment, they need to pay for it themselves, and pay to insure it. Same with the high dives.

When I worked at Barcroft, the pit was used for recreational classes every day. It was one of the three stations for all preschool classes. If there was a class scheduled during practice times, then the team stopped their use of the pit for those ten minutes so that the class could complete their rotation the same as other classes. This would never occur in any of the privately owned gyms I’ve worked for.

I can’t speak to exactly what is done nowadays. But it can be, and was, used by rec. When I worked for the county rec was always prioritized to an extent that is very unusual for gymnastics programs which also have a competitive team. At this time, the gymnastics program was exclusively run by gymnastics staff who had been involved with the program for many years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm good with a rec gymnastics program and a rec swimming program. Also fine with those programs having competition teams if they can be done in a way that doesn't burden the county financially to support a small group of athletes. A competition swim team that just uses a pool that is also used for aquicize and water safety classes is fine with me. A bunch of permanent equipment that is ONLY used by the competition level gymnasts at Barcroft doesn't make sense to me. The rec classes and adult and gymnastics classes at Bancroft are not using all that equipment, simply because it would be too dangerous. If the competition team wants that equipment, they need to pay for it themselves, and pay to insure it. Same with the high dives.

When I worked at Barcroft, the pit was used for recreational classes every day. It was one of the three stations for all preschool classes. If there was a class scheduled during practice times, then the team stopped their use of the pit for those ten minutes so that the class could complete their rotation the same as other classes. This would never occur in any of the privately owned gyms I’ve worked for.

I can’t speak to exactly what is done nowadays. But it can be, and was, used by rec. When I worked for the county rec was always prioritized to an extent that is very unusual for gymnastics programs which also have a competitive team. At this time, the gymnastics program was exclusively run by gymnastics staff who had been involved with the program for many years.

+1. The foam pit exists and it's a huge hit. I can't imagine spending money to take out something we already have that is crazy popular with kids.

[Anonymous]

When I taught at Barcroft, I did mostly pre-school classes, and I had so many parents tell me how much their child's PT and/or OT saw improvements while they were enrolled in classes. Many of them specifically said PTs and OTs loved that these kids were climbing around in the pit and how great that movement was. I even had one parents who was a PT herself say she wished her practice had a pit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stafford is the only other one that could be considered northern VA. The classes offered by Fairfax, Prince William, and Loudoun are on set up and take down basis in multi use areas.

Then there’s Sportsplax in PG county which is operated by parks and rec as far as the program. But obviously the building administration and initial capital was different from Barcroft. But my impression of strictly how the gymnastics program is run it seems very similar to Arlington.

Going farther north there are some others in Maryland I’m pretty sure. But I can’t name them off the top of my head.

Capital posts all their team tuition online, you can look it up. Arlington is well in range and more expensive in some cases. Tuition wise. Keep in mind these private teams have competitive “assessment fees” during the season of 1-2K total in addition to tuition. This covers coaching fees for meets and such. The team parent associations for Arlington also cover these fees, but I don’t know what the current fee level is there, and how it compares. From the county accounting perspective, they probably need to keep things separate but maybe more fees could be assessed at the county level to make up a salary gap, for instance. Again we don’t have any hard numbers (on the Arlington side) so it’s hard to say.

So this is not a standard offering for a local government is the answer.

Nature centers, a bike trail, and Long Bridge also aren't standard county offerings for pretty much anywhere. Arlington's an affluent community that has nice things.

Arlington is affluent but money is still finite and you still have to be able to justify expenditures. Nature centers serve educational purposes, not just at schools but for the general community, put on events for all ages, and help preserve green spaces. Is there a single public (or even private) school child in Arlington County who hasn't been through one of the nature centers and learned about hawks or owls or seen one up close for the first or only time? I doubt it. Bike trails are inexpensive to build and maintain, promote a healthy activity for all ages, and provide an alternative commuting method in a county with awful traffic. Long Bridge offers programming from birth to 80+, including foundational water safety classes, teaching an essential, life saving skill. It's a facility that is used pretty equally by kids, middle aged adults, and the elderly.

Now make the case for the Bancroft gymnastics program in a way that makes it as appealing or beneficial as the three other amenities you mentioned. If you can't do that in a way that is convincing for your fellow residents, then the program shouldn't exist.

It really just sounds like you're not familiar with the gymnastics program, which offers programming for toddlers, preschoolers, kids--all the way through high school--plus there's both an adaptive and an adult program (with a waitlist above 50 people). It's one of the only boys gymnastics programs in the area, something that's really hard to find. Gymnastics offers lots of health benefits including strength and balance training, flexibility, and overall health benefits. It's a very quality and popular program, with huge waitlists. A large number of kids in the county take at least one gymnastics class at some point in their childhood. The facility also serves as home to the Wakefield gymnastics team, making it equal with the programs provided at Yorktown and WL, as there's not a space for the Wakefield team to practice at Wakefield. On top of all this, there's a possibility for the program to cover its costs such that it's a resource for the community and not a burden. We just need to get the county manager and DPR on board with maximizing the facility and making sure it's being fully utilized.

And you can make claims about water safety and Long Bridge being necessary all you want, but there is absolutely no justification for the largesse that is that facility. We already had public pools in Arlington at each of the high schools. Long Bridge could have been a facility that benefited the whole community, but instead it was very focused on competitive swim, and it's continuing to eat up county funds with expensive repairs to a brand new facility and by running a loss.

+1 Long Bridge has high dives that I have seen used once or twice in many visits to the facility. I cannot imagine how much it costs to install, maintain, and insure these high dives, and it seems the actual use of the high dives is extraordinarily rare. How do these high dives benefit Arlington residents? The higher of the two is a type of board I’ve only ever seen in person at the USNA.

I think that's a fair point about the high dives. But I feel about them the same way I feel about Bancroft -- I don't really love my tax payer dollars being spent on expensive equipment for a niche sport, especially if that expensive equipment also requires constant maintenance, specialized coaching, and higher insurance costs.

So remove the high dives at Long Bridge (which I think is otherwise a really valuable facility that is used recreationally, daily, by a broad variety of county residents, not just the competitive swim team) and reconfigure Bancroft and the gymnastics program to focus on tumbling and all-ages fitness classes. I don't see the need for a specialty high dive at Long Bridge, and I don't see the need for a regulation competition vault and foam pit at Bancroft. Both are super niche equipment used only by a small number of fairly high level athletes in a sport that few people pursue at a high level. People who want to pursue sports at that level and within those niches can pay private facilities to do so.

I'm good with a rec gymnastics program and a rec swimming program. Also fine with those programs having competition teams if they can be done in a way that doesn't burden the county financially to support a small group of athletes. A competition swim team that just uses a pool that is also used for aquicize and water safety classes is fine with me. A bunch of permanent equipment that is ONLY used by the competition level gymnasts at Barcroft doesn't make sense to me. The rec classes and adult and gymnastics classes at Bancroft are not using all that equipment, simply because it would be too dangerous. If the competition team wants that equipment, they need to pay for it themselves, and pay to insure it. Same with the high dives.

You can go and watch practices at Barcroft. You'll quickly notice that all of the groups rotate amongst all of the stations. There's not equipment that's reserved for particular groups or just the competition team. Obviously preschoolers are on low beam but there are absolutely rec classes on the high beam. The whole space is utilized by both groups at the same time, as they rotate through stations on a schedule.

Lots of the things utilized by the team in ways to do certain skills are utilized by rec classes in different ways. Pretty much everything is multi-use. For instance, the rec team may use a springboard to jump onto the vault table to land on their feet, while the competition team may actually use it to vault. One is an incremental step in learning to do the other. But the equipment is getting used by both groups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stafford is the only other one that could be considered northern VA. The classes offered by Fairfax, Prince William, and Loudoun are on set up and take down basis in multi use areas.

Then there’s Sportsplax in PG county which is operated by parks and rec as far as the program. But obviously the building administration and initial capital was different from Barcroft. But my impression of strictly how the gymnastics program is run it seems very similar to Arlington.

Going farther north there are some others in Maryland I’m pretty sure. But I can’t name them off the top of my head.

Capital posts all their team tuition online, you can look it up. Arlington is well in range and more expensive in some cases. Tuition wise. Keep in mind these private teams have competitive “assessment fees” during the season of 1-2K total in addition to tuition. This covers coaching fees for meets and such. The team parent associations for Arlington also cover these fees, but I don’t know what the current fee level is there, and how it compares. From the county accounting perspective, they probably need to keep things separate but maybe more fees could be assessed at the county level to make up a salary gap, for instance. Again we don’t have any hard numbers (on the Arlington side) so it’s hard to say.

So this is not a standard offering for a local government is the answer.

Nature centers, a bike trail, and Long Bridge also aren't standard county offerings for pretty much anywhere. Arlington's an affluent community that has nice things.

Arlington is affluent but money is still finite and you still have to be able to justify expenditures. Nature centers serve educational purposes, not just at schools but for the general community, put on events for all ages, and help preserve green spaces. Is there a single public (or even private) school child in Arlington County who hasn't been through one of the nature centers and learned about hawks or owls or seen one up close for the first or only time? I doubt it. Bike trails are inexpensive to build and maintain, promote a healthy activity for all ages, and provide an alternative commuting method in a county with awful traffic. Long Bridge offers programming from birth to 80+, including foundational water safety classes, teaching an essential, life saving skill. It's a facility that is used pretty equally by kids, middle aged adults, and the elderly.

Now make the case for the Bancroft gymnastics program in a way that makes it as appealing or beneficial as the three other amenities you mentioned. If you can't do that in a way that is convincing for your fellow residents, then the program shouldn't exist.

It really just sounds like you're not familiar with the gymnastics program, which offers programming for toddlers, preschoolers, kids--all the way through high school--plus there's both an adaptive and an adult program (with a waitlist above 50 people). It's one of the only boys gymnastics programs in the area, something that's really hard to find. Gymnastics offers lots of health benefits including strength and balance training, flexibility, and overall health benefits. It's a very quality and popular program, with huge waitlists. A large number of kids in the county take at least one gymnastics class at some point in their childhood. The facility also serves as home to the Wakefield gymnastics team, making it equal with the programs provided at Yorktown and WL, as there's not a space for the Wakefield team to practice at Wakefield. On top of all this, there's a possibility for the program to cover its costs such that it's a resource for the community and not a burden. We just need to get the county manager and DPR on board with maximizing the facility and making sure it's being fully utilized.

And you can make claims about water safety and Long Bridge being necessary all you want, but there is absolutely no justification for the largesse that is that facility. We already had public pools in Arlington at each of the high schools. Long Bridge could have been a facility that benefited the whole community, but instead it was very focused on competitive swim, and it's continuing to eat up county funds with expensive repairs to a brand new facility and by running a loss.

+1 Long Bridge has high dives that I have seen used once or twice in many visits to the facility. I cannot imagine how much it costs to install, maintain, and insure these high dives, and it seems the actual use of the high dives is extraordinarily rare. How do these high dives benefit Arlington residents? The higher of the two is a type of board I’ve only ever seen in person at the USNA.

This is actually a big issue with the pool. The dive coaches were promised they would have access to the high dives and wanted to start a competitive dive team but they are unable to because the competitive swim is constantly using that area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm good with a rec gymnastics program and a rec swimming program. Also fine with those programs having competition teams if they can be done in a way that doesn't burden the county financially to support a small group of athletes. A competition swim team that just uses a pool that is also used for aquicize and water safety classes is fine with me. A bunch of permanent equipment that is ONLY used by the competition level gymnasts at Barcroft doesn't make sense to me. The rec classes and adult and gymnastics classes at Bancroft are not using all that equipment, simply because it would be too dangerous. If the competition team wants that equipment, they need to pay for it themselves, and pay to insure it. Same with the high dives.

When I worked at Barcroft, the pit was used for recreational classes every day. It was one of the three stations for all preschool classes. If there was a class scheduled during practice times, then the team stopped their use of the pit for those ten minutes so that the class could complete their rotation the same as other classes. This would never occur in any of the privately owned gyms I’ve worked for.

I can’t speak to exactly what is done nowadays. But it can be, and was, used by rec. When I worked for the county rec was always prioritized to an extent that is very unusual for gymnastics programs which also have a competitive team. At this time, the gymnastics program was exclusively run by gymnastics staff who had been involved with the program for many years.

Also this isn't even true. Rec classes use the competitive beams. They use the rings. They use the Pbars. They use the pommel horse. I can't recall if I have seen them use the uneven or high bar but I know they use the mini high bars (which the competitive boys also use). They use the vault sprint board and the trampoline!

[Anonymous]

Also this isn't even true. Rec classes use the competitive beams. They use the rings. They use the Pbars. They use the pommel horse. I can't recall if I have seen them use the uneven or high bar but I know they use the mini high bars (which the competitive boys also use). They use the vault sprint board and the trampoline!

I do agree and can provide some more details. I only quoted a portion of the post but another part of the post they mentioned the pit so I was just explain what a big part of the class program it can be.

The preschool bars have weight limits which were followed when I worked for the county, so any classes with older kids primarily used uneven bars. Again, if classes and team had to be scheduled at the same time, at this time (everything in original gymnastics space) then the area was divided up and shared.

The tumble tracks are used by all programs. Also was a specific rec rotation when I worked there.

If a program doesn’t use certain equipment it would be based on age or skill level, not necessarily team status. Recreational participants who are old enough, big enough, and confident enough can use the high beams or higher bars, for instance. Even lower level teams don’t really use uneven high bars so most rec participants wouldn’t achieve that skill level, but can use the low bars on the set. Coaches also might make stations for rec and lower level teams by putting “blocks” under the high bar so that children can hang or swing with assistance without needing to jump from bar to bar. Taller children can’t fully hang or swing on low bars.

USA Gymnastics safety standards do not recommend allowing preschool children on equipment any higher than roughly within their torso height. So Barcroft has and has always had miniature versions of equipment in order to allow these participants a safe area to develop skills. This equipment actually has a significant footprint that takes away from the equipment and training space for teams.

[Anonymous]

The broader point, to me, is all of the specialized equipment is not necessary to offer a recreational gymnastics program. I see a role for the County in offering basic recreational gymnastics classes.

It is nice, however, the rec program finds a way to use most of the equipment.