By Nestor Dordoni
Are your readers aware of how swimming is taught in our schools in Culver City?
Students are required to lie flat on a medicine ball in the gym and are supposed to simulate a breast stroke through the air!
Sound ridiculous?
Especially when nearby, we have a 20,000-sq. ft. Natatorium swimming pool that has been left to deteriorate to a horrid state.
Closing the Culver City School Natatorium swimming pool meant closing the door to those students, teachers, and even the community, who need to have a better lifestyle. Learning how to swim saves lives. It also teaches discipline and gets people involved in the great community that is Culver City.
I find it ridiculous, and I am outraged, that the School District currently plans to spend $10.7 million to demolish the school pool and replace it with a multi-purpose room for 60 to 80 students.
Meanwhile, the cost of fixing the pool would be around $3 million. It could be used by all 6,700 students in the District.
There is talk about “health and safety” being the main issue for allocating funds for capital projects in the District. What do you think water safety is?
Each day, 10 people drown in the United States, The No. 1 cause of death of children from ages 1 to 4 is by drowning. For children ages 1 to 14m drowning is the second major cause of death, next to automobile crashes.
According to USA Swimming, 70 percent of African American children cannot swim, 60 percent of Latino children cannot swim and 40 percent of Caucasian children cannot swim.
One candidate for School Board wants to fix the Natatorium. He calls himself the “common sense” candidate.
I will be voting for Robert Zirgulis for School Board on Nov. 5 because it's not rocket science. It is common sense.
Mr. Dordoni, water polo coach at Culver City High School, among other responsibilities, may be contacted at dalerrojo@yahoo.com
