Reply to Arlington proposing to close county gymnastics program

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

The county already allows private rentals of fields, pavilions, and rec center rooms for parties. My kid’s travel team pays fees to use the Barcroft indoor baseball facilities. DPR offers party rental packages that include bounce houses and skate nights. You can book parts of the aquatics center for private events. So it’s not like the county hasn’t already gotten into the birthday party business to subsidize activities.[/quote]

And County staff run the parties at these places?  That is what people are suggesting here.[/quote]
Yes.[/quote]

I have been to some of these parties at above places mentioned and I don't think saying they "run the party" is accurate.  They provide access to space or a room.  Skate nights are happening anyway, for example.  The bounce house is just there and you rented accesss for an hour and a room.  At a pool, you're part of free swim and then you get a room after.   There is not someone guiding children through activities like you would need at a gymnastics party or you get at one of the private places.  Or we're just letting them loose on the equipment and that is the party?[/quote]

This is exactly how it worked when gymnastics birthday parties were an option at Barcroft:

The gymnastics program had staff that is hired on a part time/seasonal designation, although they worked year round specifically for the gymnastics program, both competitive and rec. Paid hourly. County employees. They could have worked for other programs like teaching swimming, but they would need to be hired by the director of that program and given hours there separately. Gymnastics staff was hired by the gymnastics director and only assigned hours pertinent to the gymnastics program.

As an employee, you would show up for your assigned shift. Work. And then fill out a time card every two weeks. Get it approved. And then get paid. The payment was from Arlington County. I’m gonna go into every detail here since it seems confusing for some people.

Part of your assigned shift could be birthday parties.

The birthday kid had to be turning 3 or 4, I can’t remember, but the gymnastics portion was supposed to be independent.

People booked and paid for the slots for the birthday party through the county booking system at the time. The slots were always booked, you never had off during that time. The gym had to be mostly utilized for the party, but there was sometimes overlap from one other rec class. So whoever had birthday party was whoever was not teaching that overlapped set of classes.

The party was set up like a preschool rec class. There was a floor circuit, track and preschool bars, and free play in pit. If they wanted to pay for more participants, usually another staff member who didn’t usually work Sundays would come to be the other instructor. Or someone who was usually done with their shift would stay later.

The gymnastics staff would run the party exactly the same way as any preschool rec class. Usually the kids were not older than 6/7 so they were fine with those activities. All participants signed a waiver same as any other class. It was just like a one time class for those kids. They used the rec equipment areas and did very basic lesson plans for the first day of a rec class. We usually added some of the more “fun” options to the circuits.

Parents were in the mezzanine. They set up tables for the party there (this was done by facility staff) and after the gymnastics class was done they had their party portion up there. It did mean that area had to be blocked from the public for that time. It probably isn’t the most optimal space the county has for parties.

At the end of the party gymnastics staff had to make sure they left on time, signed something about their final charge based on the amount of kids they had, and basically check that they took most of their stuff. Facilities cleaned up the tables and whatever else. 
[b]
I assume there’s some reason the county decided to stop doing it. [/b]

[/quote]I think some things just never got restarted after COVID.  So now suddenly there's an issue, when it's really an APR management issue.[/quote]

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