OPINION: Reopen East High’s swimming pool

Due to a lack of lifeguards, the Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School Swimming Pool has been closed for more than seven months. And if the pool isn’t open this spring, there is a good chance it will remain closed for all of 2024. Because of the closure, the BDEAHS swim team did not practice or compete in their own pool this past season. No swim lessons happened. Families and individuals were denied a convenient pool for recreation and fitness.

This is particularly depressing because major repairs were performed to the East pool after the 2018 earthquake. It took political pressure, in no small part from Sen. Bill Wielechowski’s office, to get the pool back in working order. In that context, to see this perfectly good pool sitting unused is heartbreaking. One would think that after swimmer Lydia Jacoby’s gold medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Alaska’s interest in keeping all our pools open would be sky-high.

So why hasn’t Anchorage kept theirs open? Well, it’s complicated. The municipality owns the pools, not the Anchorage School District. Thus, it is the municipality’s responsibility to recruit lifeguards. Anchorage has had many struggles this past year, and reopening East’s pool doesn’t appear to have been a priority.

But let me explain why it’s a priority for me. The BDEAHS swimming pool serves some of the lowest-income folk in Anchorage. The people who use this pool don’t always have the means to drive to other pools. Beyond potentially destroying a swim team program — commuting to Bartlett’s pool for practice is, according to one swim team parent, “not on our way to anything” — it takes away the opportunity to discover swimming as a lifelong interest. Anchorage has great Masters Swim programs for older residents, who if they hadn’t started swimming in their youth, never would have found this lifelong passion. There are students at BDEAHS right now who have missed their window. They did not learn to swim or consider swimming as their sport because it was left off their radar.

This holiday season, please consider becoming a municipal lifeguard. We often imagine lifeguards as 16-year-olds earning summer spending money, but I need you to think beyond that stereotype. If you can pass the required swim exam, you can be one. Sitting and watching people swim may seem inconsequential, but lifeguards save about a million lives per year. And even if you never save a life, there’s incalculable value in getting the BDEAHS swimming pool open as soon as possible. You will provide a life-changing opportunity to a community that otherwise would not have it.

My office is offering scholarships for lifeguard training. Visit repgray.com/lifeguard, call our office at 907-269-0123 or email rep.andrew.gray@akleg.gov.

Alaska State House Rep. Andrew Gray represents the U-Med District, which includes Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School.

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