About 900 people on waitlist for City of Regina swimming lessons due to pool capacity issues
CBC
Parents across Regina are facing significant difficulties enrolling their children in city-run swimming lessons.
Registration opened early Tuesday morning. As of Wednesday afternoon, the City of Regina said there were just under 900 people on the waitlist for classes they prefer or need.
In comparison, the City of Saskatoon said that approximately 420 people are on its waitlist. That number, however, is for both aquatic and recreation programming.
Deanne Selinger of Regina has a four-year-old son and said she has to be on her toes to get him into a class that works for her family’s schedule.
On registration days, parents log-in to the city’s website to submit their swimming lesson requests. Selinger said this is no easy feat. Parents must be ready to submit immediately at 7:00 a.m.
She said if parents are “fortunate” and have chosen exactly which classes they want ahead of time, they can add the classes to their online shopping cart easily and click the purchase button.
Those who are lagging behind, or hoping for a popular class, time or pool, may miss out.
“You really need to be on the ball and you’ve got to pick which class [is your] first priority to get that one first. So you’ve got to choose which kid needs more swimming lessons than the other, which happens a lot in families with multiple children,” Selinger said.
“You may not get the classes that are overlapping for those two children, which can be a huge problem as well.”
The City of Regina told CBC it's aware demand for swimming lessons greatly outpaces the number of lessons it can offer.
“The availability of swimming lessons is constrained by both facility capacity and balancing the scheduling needs of a multi-use facility,” it said.
Those needs include lane swim, leisure swim, aquacise, user groups like swimming clubs, staff training and leadership courses.
Meegan Svedahl, a private swimming instructor in Regina, said demand for her lessons has gone up considerably.
This year she received requests from more than 100 people, but said she is only able to take five students due to the lack of training space at the Lawson Aquatic Centre, Sandra Schmirler Leisure Centre and the North West Leisure Centre.
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