Arlington proposing to close county gymnastics program
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Anonymous
The elected County Board members are very transparent about their positions on this. They are chosen in a caucus process where only around 6k people even vote. Then the wider electorate show up on election day and most voters just vote the D party ticket they are handed outside the polling place. It's cliche at this point to elections have consequences, but well.... |
Anonymous
I am skeptical about this claim simply because I know of other gymnastics gyms in the area (including the DC parks and rec) that have really struggled with hiring in recent years. I know from personal experience this has been an industry-wide issue since Covid. It's not just a question of having qualified individuals, it's finding people who can work the times you need and carry the right number of hours to make it worthwhile. It's easy to find a gymnastics instructor who wants to coach two classes a week (preferably advanced classes) and they have to be on Thursday and Saturday and also they are not available at all in December or July. But what gym programs need are people who can work 20 or more hours, have flexible scheduling that accommodates when classes need to run, are willing to schedule vacations around class schedules (because you can't find people to fill in when they are out of town and have to cancel classes), etc. This is genuinely hard to find. |
Anonymous
Private gyms can do this because they also have regular staff there all the time to oversee teen coaches and to do administrative and other duties so the teens are literally just coaching kids. Student-coaches have to work a very specific schedule since obviously they go to school full time and have their own training -- they might coach one or two classes a week, they aren't covering 20 classes over 5 days. It's a logistical nightmare setting something like that up and if the competitive team wanted to do that, they'd need to do ALL the legwork. You an't expect someone from DPR to vet a bunch of teenagers, figure out their bespoke schedules working around school and their own practices and meets, and ensuring that you also have the right adults there so that some 15 year old isn't running the whole gym themselves on a Tuesday night because that's not appropriate. There are lots of things private gyms can do that it is not reasonable to expect DPR to do. |
Anonymous
Except we have a competitive teams manager and a recreational manager who already have the job that is designed to manage this (and they don't currently coach they just manage full time). But yes if for someone those folks can't do the very thing their job requires, then sure we can do it (with the coaches support, which we have as they suggested this model and how to run it). I am a little frustrated that folks seem to think we dont want to put in the work.. |
Anonymous
This is not a meaningful threat for many of us who are expressing unhappiness with the current state of the gymnastics program because of the fundamental differences between other sports and gymnastics. All of the other sports you mention use outdoor facilities with little or no specialty equipment that are a standard part of DPR offerings in most municipalities. No one thinks DPR is going to close all the baseball and soccer fields (which are also used by everyone from schools to private travel leagues to adult rec leagues and more). Basketball gyms are used similarly plus get used as multipurpose spaces for other community events. Tennis and pickleball courts are incredibly cheap to build and maintain compared to other facilities and used by all ages. None of these facilities are going to be closed even if the county decided to stop offering the competition teams you mentioned. Heck most of these facilities would continue to be in use even if the county didn't teach rec classes on them, because providing courts and fields for general interest sports is just a baseline DPR activity. Anyone can play basketball or tennis or soccer. You could go use one of these facilities today after spending $40 at Dick's. Which also means it's accessible to people at all skill and ability levels. Same with pools -- the county is never getting rid of public swimming pools. These are baseline, general interest sports. A gymnastics gym with specialized equipment that requires specialized instruction to use is not the same. If you want to save the gymnastics program, you need to wrap your head around the idea that gymnastics is different as a sport, it is fundamentally less accessible due to the nature of the sport and equipment, and it is harder for the county to offer it as a rec sport. Once you absorb that, you can start figuring out a solution that actually works. Claiming that the county might shut down baseball fields tomorrow based on this precedent is not it. No, they won't. |
Anonymous
Sorry meant to say "if for some reason these folks cant do..." |
Anonymous
Why hasn't the work been put in! I see a lot of people blaming the county for failing to hire coaches. If the teams manager and the rec manager were aware of the staffing problem, which has been going on for years, and aware of the limited rec offerings, which has been going on for years, why where these FULL TIME EMPLOYEES not working on these issue. The program has just been canceling rec classes for years due to short staffing and the attitude is "why didn't DPR hire more coaches for us" or "why didn't DPR tell us this was a problem"? Take some accountability. The program was being poorly run, clearly. I think you also need to understand that from the perspective of tax payers, it doesn't matter whose fault it is that the program is in the hole. It could be DPR's fault, it could be the program's own mismanagement. It's likely a combination of both. If you are a county tax payer who cares about the budget and are not invested in a county gymnastics program (which is most tax payers), all that matters is fixing the error. DPR is proposing cutting the program. That fixes the problem. if the program wants to fix itself, you need an explanation for why more was not done to address these obvious issues sooner. Did the program management really not understand that the program has been bleeding hundreds of thousands of dollars for years? And if they did know, did they really not see the urgency in needing to address that issue? I don't get it, I really don't. It sounds like the program got complacent and figured the county would continue to cover their big shortage forever, and made no effort to address it. That really bugs me. |
Anonymous
I mean why aren't these folks coaching? The teams manager position unfilled for a while and went through multiple rounds of interviews (like they would interview 4 people decide not to hire any then reopen the job and do it all over). But yeah we have been asking these questions over and over |
Anonymous
Fair, but before this year the County could heavily support affordable housing and all of these services that go along with that AND run all these programs that are now being cut. When we can’t have both, people might change their minds. |
Anonymous
| The teams manager used to also coach in the old set up. The manager should ABSOLUTELY be coaching right now. As to the comment from the person skeptical of the staff opportunities being disregarded, it's important to note there is a shortage of people for high level gymnastics. DPR could add rec classes with high schoolers coaching and there isn't a lack of interest of availability. One year, half the staff at the YMCA summer camp was from Barcroft gymnasts. You don't need the specialized training for low rec classes. The girls who have made it to levels 8-10 could easily teach those classes and some other places actually pay them to do so. |
Anonymous
I’m not sure I’m understanding your complaint right, DPR is the one who manages the program. More and more so recently. It used to be managed much more internally by people who were also coaches. |
Anonymous
So much buck passing. The program has two full time management positions, yes? A competitive team manager and a recreational team manager. Presumable these are people who want the program to succeed. Why didn't the people in those roles take actions to address the staffing shortage? If I were in that role and didn't have enough staff to meet demand for classes, I'd be reaching out to DPR constantly asking about where we were on hiring, and explaining clearly how much money we were leaving on the table by failing to staff additional classes, until they either hired me staff or gave me responsibility and budget to hire staff myself. If I knew of qualified coaches who were applying to the program and never hearing back, I would be contact hiring managers and DPR and asking what was going on and letting them know we desperately need staff and know of people who had submitted applications, but they weren't hearing back. It sounds like the competition team manager was successfully doing what had to be done to keep the competition team going. Why wasn't more effort being made on the rec side to build out staff and improve enrollment numbers? If they weren't doing that, what was this person doing, especially when apparently they weren't coaching? I am baffled. Where is this person? Why isn't there some accountability there? |
Anonymous
| DPR's ineptitude has caused this. It's been a slow decline starting with a program management change in 2021. Staff weren't treated with respect and the DPR member in charge or the tryouts and home meet fumbled the ball. |
Anonymous
The competitive team manager only started in December the.position was vacant for over a year before that (see my post on multiple interviews but no one getting hired). The program manager waa doing both jobs. But yes. I agree otherwise |
Anonymous
I will add it does sound like somethings were tried but it went into a upper management/hr black hole. Why no one kept pushing? Folks may have been worried about job security because folks have been pushed out in the past |