The Leader • Saturday, May 21, 2022 • Page 5
Lifeguard, from P. 1A
Pool, from P. 1A
ment effort, a total of 53 sought positions. “It all starts with the lifeguard,” he said. “And we’re not getting ’em.” The American Red Cross has ramped up its training and certification programs across the U.S., according to news reports, to try to deal with what has become a national crisis since the pandemic started. This isn’t the first time Maura has dealt with a shortage, but he said the challenge is different from his first go-round in the late 1990s and early 2000s. “Then we saw it coming and went into schools and colleges and were able to recruit,” he said. “Now we couldn’t even go onto campuses until just recently because of restrictions.” And something else has changed, according to Maura. “The issue here is bigger than pay,” he said. “When the world shut down, people learned how to live without going to work. They figured out different ways to get by, things they could do from home or online — especially young people.” His deadline is May 25 to determine how many pools can be open with the number of lifeguards he’s able to hire by then. Last year, one in each of 10 council districts welcomed swimmers, including the Memorial Park Pool in District C and the Stude Park Pool in District H. Three others in the area — in T.C. Jester, Oak Forest and Love parks — were penciled in for a July opening if lifeguards could be hired, but that never happened. Maura said he’s prepared again to open pools through July if new hires can be processed. The minimum age is 16 (by May 31), and applicants must pass a swim evaluation, physical, drug test and criminal background check. They must either be Red Cross certified or undergo the training-certification provided through the city. Pay is $13.66 an hour for lifeguards and $15 an hour for head lifeguards. Applications can be completed online at https://houstontx.gov/ jobs or by contacting 832-395-7129. “This is a sad situation,” Maura said. “We’re talking about more than jobs here — we’re talking kids missing out on a summer of swimming.”
funds from a 2012 bond. The 7,587-square foot natatorium at Washington – which includes restrooms, showers, moveable bleachers and a swimming pool that is 25 yards long and four lanes wide – was completed in late 2020 at a cost of more than $3 million. Washington Principal Carlos Phillips said the decision to construct a pool was based on input from stakeholders in the surrounding Independence Heights community, and that the vision for the facility is for it to be used by students as well as community members – for the purposes of exercise, water safety training and as a practice pool for a competitive swim team. Washington won a swimming state championship in the 1960s but has not fielded a team since the early 2000s, according to Phillips. The principal said during a phone interview in late March that about 10 students had expressed interest in being part of a swim team at Washington, which designated faculty member DeAundra Thomas to be the head coach, but no swimming activities had been conducted as of that point, with Phillips citing a permitting issue with the city. After the city cleared the pool to be open on April 26, Phillips said through an HISD spokesperson that the school was waiting to have a security camera system updated and that a summer swimming schedule might be implemented. As of Tuesday morning, the Houston Health Department’s red “Pool Closed Until Further Notice” sign remained on the door to the facility. Phillips said the pool had been used only once since it was constructed, with the Washington volleyball team using it for a short workout at some point prior to this school year. “We plan on opening it up, once we get everything in line and our systems are
together,” Phillips said in March. “We’re absolutely going to use the pool the same way we use our school – open to the community.” Dispute over access In the meantime, Jordan and another booster club member for the swim team at Heights, which uses the older and smaller pools at Hamilton and Hogg middle school for its practice sessions during the season, said they do not understand why they have not been allowed to utilize the largely unused pool at Washington, which is less than 2.5 miles away from the Heights campus. Jordan and fellow booster club member Lesley Goodman, who has a son on the Heights team, said they first inquired about using the natatorium at Washington shortly after it was constructed. Their request was denied at that time because of safety concerns related to COVID-19, they said they were told. When members of the booster club emailed Phillips on Aug. 4, 2021, to ask about the possibility of using the pool and offer to partner with Washington in terms of allowing its students to swim for Heights and to host events that could be financially beneficial to Washington and its students, Phillips responded the next day and made no mention of the ongoing pandemic or a permitting issue with the pool. He said Washington wanted to first address the pool-related needs of its campus and students and that the possibility of a collaboration with Heights could be “revisited by our athletic department” at a later time. When the idea of a campus swimming pool as part of the 2012 bond was initially considered by Washington’s Project Advisory Team in the summer of 2013, it was suggested that it could be a regional pool that “would be located strategically to serve multiple schools,” according
ming pool. So it would be understandable if that principal did not want to go out of the way to accommodate the needs of another school, according to the administrator. But Phillips rejected that notion in March, saying, “I couldn’t care less if they go to Heights or Washington. … At the end of the day, I support kids.” Phillips also reiterated that he is open to the idea of opening the pool to students from other campuses “as long as it’s aligned to campus goals” at Washington, adding that he would want a faculty member who is certified in water safety to oversee such sessions. Prolonged pool closure When initially asked why the Heights swim team wasn’t being allowed to use the pool, Phillips said no one could use the pool because it had been closed by the city. When asked why the pool was closed and what needed to happen in order for it to be reopened, Phillips deferred to the city. Houston Health Department spokesperson Porfirio Villarreal said in an April 11 email that an annual pool inspection was initiated Sept. 30, but was not completed because city inspectors could not access the pump room and Washington had not yet obtained a renewed operating permit, which expired Sept. 5. Villarreal said the new permit was obtained Nov. 4, but the pool remained closed while the health department waited to hear from school representatives regarding a time and date to access the pump room and complete the inspection. That information was presented later April 11 to the HISD press office. The following day, Washington contacted the health department about having the inspection completed, and a city inspector visited the pool, according to Villarreal. Three critical violations were discovered at that time, according to Villarreal, who
to the advisory team’s minutes that are posted on the HISD website. The meeting minutes from the following month show that a natatorium was removed from the plan for a new school because of space concerns and historically low usage of the pool on the existing Washington campus. A spokesperson for HISD said earlier this year that access to campus pools is determined by the principals at those schools, and not the district’s athletics director or aquatics director. A request to interview athletics director Andre’ Walker, aquatics director Stephen McDonald and Heights Principal Wendy Hampton were not granted by the HISD press office. Kristin Haney Jones, the head coach for the swim team at Heights, did not respond to requests for comment. Jordan and Goodman said the Heights booster club also brought up the pool issue to HISD trustee Elizabeth Santos, whose geographic district includes both Heights and Washington. When asked about the pool dispute in late April, Santos said in a text message, “I thought this had been resolved.” She did not respond to subsequent requests for comment about the matter. “We have gone through absolutely every avenue we possibly can,” Goodman said. “We’ve exhausted every resource we possibly can, and this principal is being allowed to reign supreme over this pool when all of our taxpayer dollars have paid for it, which I don’t understand at all.” A longtime HISD administrator who asked to remain anonymous said allowing students from another school to use an on-campus facility would be an added layer of responsibility for a campus principal who might already have a lot on his or her plate, especially when it comes to a safety hazard such as a swim-
said a second reaching pole with a body hook was needed, there was too big of a gap in the pool enclosure, and the water’s pH level was a little too low. Villarreal said those violations were corrected, and the pool passed inspection April 26. “The permit (expiration) started this whole deal,” said Villarreal, who added that Washington’s pool was previously allowed to be open. “When they didn’t renew it, it was shut down.” It is unclear why campus or school district officials did not act with more urgency to have the pool operational during this school year or why the pool was not utilized more during the spring semester of last school year, when it had been freshly constructed. This year’s Heights swim team competed from last fall through February, with 16 of its team members qualifying for a UIL regional competition, which is one step away from the state meet. Jordan said the team at Heights has not inquired about using the pool at Waltrip, another nearby school, because Waltrip has a swim team that regularly uses its pool. She also said it’s “silly” that Heights’ swimmers do not have consistent access to a competition-sized pool, with the facilities at Hamilton and Hogg being too small to adequately simulate a swim that would take place in a meet. The shortest event in UIL competition is the 50yard freestyle, and Jordan said the pools at Hamilton and Hogg are only 20 yards long. “I don’t care who ends up using (the pool at Washington). I would like it to be us,” Jordan said. “But this is just a waste, and I don’t understand why that’s acceptable. I don’t understand why we have an athletics director at HISD and an aquatics director at HISD and it’s out of their hands. That’s ridiculous.”
Shooting, from P. 1A bullet entered his right hand and was lodged in his right wrist. The student’s girlfriend told police she saw Owiesy on campus before the shooting, and that Owiesy and her boyfriend had argued one day earlier about a milkshake being thrown at her boyfriend’s vehicle, court documents show. A Houston ISD spokesperson said he could not confirm or deny whether Owiesy is a student at Heights or another school in the district, citing a federal law that protects the privacy
of student education records. In the probable cause affidavits filed with the aggravated robbery charges from March, the student victims referred to Owiesy and three passengers in the black Volkswagen sedan he allegedly was driving as “classmates.” Court documents show that if Owiesy is released from jail on bond, he must wear a GPS monitor and stay at least 200 feet away from Heights High School, located at 413 E. 13th St., and all other HISD properties. The HISD spokesperson said
four other people are suspected of being involved in the May 12 shooting in the student parking lot, although no other arrests had been made as of Monday. Court records show that the student who was shot was returning to campus from lunch along with his girlfriend and two other friends when a black Volkswagen Passat pulled in front of his vehicle and the shooter got out and tapped on the victim’s window with a gun, asking him to get out of his car. Multiple rounds were fired into the vehicle when the
student attempted to drive off, according to court documents, which show that police retrieved eight 9mm shell casings from the campus parking lot. Two other students were walking back to school from a convenience store on the afternoon of March 7 when a black Volkswagen sedan allegedly driven by Owiesy passed by them multiple times and stopped in the 1300 block of Arlington Street, where three passengers got out and confronted the two students who were walking, according to
court records. A physical fight ensued, with one of the students sustaining a fractured arm, and the passengers stole the students’ backpacks before getting back into the sedan, court documents show. The step-father of one of the students picked them up from that location, spotted the black Volkswagen in the area and followed it while calling police, according to court records, which show that Owiesy and one of his passengers are alleged to have fired multiple gunshots at the
step-father’s vehicle while they were driving. Two of the passengers of the Volkswagen, identified as juveniles in court documents, were arrested the following day and charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. Court records show that arrest warrants with aggravated robbery charges against Owiesy were not signed until about eight hours after his May 13 arrest in connection to the shooting.
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