After less than a week where local high school swimmers came together, started a petition, contacted school board members and took to social media to spread the word, the Albemarle County School Board has made a decision not to target individual sports, saving swimming and diving from the potential chopping block.
“The School Board decided not to target individual sports for possible reductions,” said Samuel Miller District school board member Eric Strucko via email.
Instead, the school board will treat athletics as a single program titled “athletics” and not any particular sport will be targeted as a line item.
“We are seeking the necessary revenues to cover costs, and if that effort falls short then we will seek to reduce programs/spending line items,” Strucko said. “By ‘programs’ with respect to athletics, I mean all sports consolidated into a single program titled athletics. So swimming will remain a high school sport.”
In effect, by changing how the school board will look to reduce costs, they’ve spared swimming and diving.
The swim community as a whole started mobilizing late last week after a power point related to the budget discussions was picked up on the radio and by various other local media outlets. By Sunday, national swimming and diving news outlet Swim Swam had picked up on the story and a petition on change.org started by Western Albemarle standout Remedy Rule was starting to make the rounds. Even a Facebook group called “Save Albemarle County Swim and Dive” was up and running with 577 members as of Thursday afternoon due to the initial efforts of Albemarle boys swimmers Joey Michel and Reece Echelberger. More than 300 emails were sent to school board members and more than 1,800 people signed the petition.
“When it was announced it didn’t feel real, I was just thinking are they seriously considering this?,” Rule said. “Then when they announced (that swimming wasn’t going to be targeted) It felt almost anti-climactic, it was weird.”
Rule a year-round swimmer who finished fifth nationally in the 200 butterfly at winter nationals, would obviously be swimming wether or not Western had a team or not, but she’s put a high value on her experience with the Warriors.
“Part of the reason I went to Western was I knew they had a swim team,” Rule said. “I know people in all different grades because of the swim team. One of my friends (from year-round swimming) goes to a school that doesn’t have a swim team and nobody understands anything about the sport. It helps to have people understand your sport and know what you’re going through.”
The change by the school board was a welcome development for the entire swim community, who can now rest assured that the swimming and diving teams will remain a part of local high school athletics.
“I was amazed at how quickly parents and more importantly the swimmers mobilized,” said Western coach and history teacher Dan Bledsoe. “Between the Albemarle kids who started the facebook group and Remedy starting the online petition, it was amazing to see the kids get involved and show up at the board meeting. They got to see the political process in some way and see what power they can have, better than any lesson that I could’ve given.”
