Most recent update: As of Oct. 3, the Park swimming pool is up and running once again. The schedule for heater repair went to plan, and the girls’ swim team will be back swimming in the pool as soon as possible. 

Senior swim captain Stella Rostal said she was looking forward to being back at the pool after so long. 

“I’m so excited,” said Rostal. “I’ve actually missed it — I never thought I would say I’ve really wanted to be at the highschool pool, but I’ve really missed being here.”

Having a school with so many years on it has some downsides. This year — just before the Park girls’ swimming season started — the old age at Park started to show when the pool heater gave out.

Original story: According to swim coach Amanda Forsberg, while the pool is in generally good condition, it should be expected that a pool might have some issues after being in use for 37 years. 

“There’s updates and maintenance that needs to happen, but that’s pretty good about being done,” Forsberg said. “It’s just loud in there because the ventilation is old — it’s an old pool, there’s not much we can really do about that.” 

While the heater broke in early August, it’s not as simple as replacing a generic part. Because of the age and make of the pool and all the systems related, a replacement part needed to be specially ordered, made and installed to get the pool up and running.   

Junior swimmer Stephanie Stone said she values the community swimming has brought her at the high school.

“It’s nice to swim at the high school because I get to do it with a lot of my school friends and it’s just a nice community to have,” said Stone. “I’ve been swimming for 10 years, so I like doing it.”

Senior swim captain Stella Rostal said with the schedule they were given, the dates aren’t completely clear, but the repairs shouldn’t affect the boys’ swim season.

“They said we would have it back by October, but that’s not happening,” Rostal said. “It might affect the boys, but I’m assuming it won’t.”

While the pool has been out of commission, the swimmers have been swimming at either Park Middle School or Park Spanish Immersion depending on availability. According to Rostal, transportation isn’t provided and many of the younger students end up needing to tag along with the older students. 

“It’s my senior season, and I was really hoping to just cruise through it, but I have to either haul people to PSI or the middle school,” Rostal said. “And I want a senior night but I don’t even know if that’s happening or not.”

Park’s next girls’ meet is just this week at 6 p.m. Oct. 13 at Olson Middle School.