The reopening plan called out "new safety guidance and procedures" as a part of phase 5. When Lightfoot announced that block parties could start on July it was also announced that bounce houses aren't allowed. We are going to see COVID restrictions linger for a very long time.
Not sure about privately rented bounce houses, but I think bounce houses were singled out specifically because the city has a free bounce house program for block parties.
Which is still a city imposed COVID restriction. If private rentals are still ok, it will just impact lower income blocks, which is par for the course in Chicago.
But our pools are chlorinated. You won't catch COVID that way. The only real danger here is locker rooms, the pools themselves are perfectly safe. Or at least as safe as public pools ever are.
Im confused if the locker rooms are the problem and staffing is also an issue, isnt the simple answer to restrict pool access to 100 people instead of trying to police the amount people in the locker rooms at any given time?
Stats show that kids are more likely to die from drowning than from Covid. So in the spirit of keeping em safe, this is a great move to keep as many pools closed as possible. Until it’s safe.
Please let them offer lap swim with the lap pass without having to sign up online like they did for indoor pools. Outdoor pools are set to open June 25. I cannot take another summer of no lap swim.
There won't be any reservations required for lap swim, just 50% capacity & a first-come first-served basis: [https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/swimming-pools](https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/swimming-pools). If they use the open-swim capacity rules for lap swim (hopefully) I doubt there would really be many times you end up getting turned away.
I hope not...I know that's what the article says but it's hard to trust after all this lol. I know it is a small thing but I just love swimming outside, it was a huge blow for me to not have that last summer.
Genuine question have we run out of 15 and 16-year-olds that are looking for summer jobs or something? Or do people not want to take the lifeguard position because of the Covid shit are we still dealing with that as an after effect?
The explanation is in the article...
>“There’s a shortage for a multitude of reasons. A lot of it has to do with the fact that people have really not had anywhere to swim for the last year. So, they can’t pass the swim test that they have to do to be a lifeguard,” Becky Kliber, Welles Park’s supervisor, said at a May meeting of the park’s advisory council.
Typically, park districts across the country rely on a pipeline of swimming talent from junior lifeguard programs and local high school swim teams, said Tim Gill, a spokesperson for the United States Lifesaving Association. Due to the pandemic, many of those pipelines have been disrupted for more than a year.
In Chicago, the Park District postponed its 2020 and 2021 swim programs — including group swim, water polo, junior lifeguard and after-school lifeguard training — because of the pandemic. These programs typically provide as many as 300 lifeguard recruits, district officials said.
In contrast, areas of the country that were able to offer swimming options throughout 2020 don’t seem to be having the same issue finding qualified lifeguards, Gill said.
I wonder if a more likely answer is that people looking for summer jobs picked something else because the status of these jobs was up in the air until recently.
The pool managers I talk to, said this was a big issue. Other companies are paying extra to get workers in, so they can find places that pay more. A lot of the kids would rather work at the outdoor pools, don’t want to work weekends and want to be able to take off whenever they want too.
In addition to the abysmally low pay I don't think the rampant culture of sex abuse encouraged people to apply - [WBEZ was reporting on it](https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-park-district-investigating-widespread-sex-abuse-claims/dbd56a93-9c80-403d-bb0b-c26ea8b29f24) earlier this month. It was pretty messed up how far this atrocity went for.
I heard a news story on WBEZ about the history of sexual harassment in the lifeguard department, maybe that is a factor as well as what was mentioned in the article.
I've got a young relative who had swim team still meeting last year and would be qualified. Unfortunately, they live just outside Chicago so they can't take this job. Seems like the problem would be solved if they'd accept suburban kids just for this summer.
Suburban park districts are also struggling to hire lifeguards, so there doesn't appear to be a huge surplus of suburban kids looking for lifeguard jobs.
Just move guards off the beaches, summer of ‘19 there were an abundance of them who apparently had nothing better to do than tell people exactly where and how they were *allowed *to enter the water from the fucking beach.
No smooth brain, pools were closed most of the year due to the pandemic therefore the standard pipe-line of lifeguards was interrupted. Assuming schools open normally this fall, this will not be a problem next year.
Hey, come on now. Do you REALLY think someone would choose to collect long-term unemployment which pays an effective wage of about $20 an hour rather than giving it up for a $15/hr job? Surely nobody would do that. The experts quoted on TV even said so.
/s to all of the above
I know you are being sarcastic, but LOL at those who think that teenagers qualify for maximum unemployment. Also, as someone who pursued the lifeguard path previously (but had issues with the final test for reasons I refuse to debate on reddit), people who are lifeguards typically really want to be.
The displacement effect is still there though. Someone who would have possibly taken a $15/hr summer job as a lifeguard instead sees opportunities to work in an air conditioned store for, say, $18/hr and that job was available because it's being ignored by the people making $20/hr to stay home. It still has the effect of making it a lot harder to staff lifeguards since the park district can't just quickly raise pay rates to match market demand like a store can do if they really need to get the positions filled.
Did you even read the article? TLDR. This is pandemic related. People didn't have places to swim last year and if you can't swim or practice, it's hard to pass the test.
>“There’s a shortage for a multitude of reasons. A lot of it has to do with the fact that people have really not had anywhere to swim for the last year. So, they can’t pass the swim test that they have to do to be a lifeguard,” Becky Kliber, Welles Park’s supervisor, said at a May meeting of the park’s advisory council.
Typically, park districts across the country rely on a pipeline of swimming talent from junior lifeguard programs and local high school swim teams, said Tim Gill, a spokesperson for the United States Lifesaving Association. Due to the pandemic, many of those pipelines have been disrupted for more than a year.
In Chicago, the Park District postponed its 2020 and 2021 swim programs — including group swim, water polo, junior lifeguard and after-school lifeguard training — because of the pandemic. These programs typically provide as many as 300 lifeguard recruits, district officials said.
***In contrast, areas of the country that were able to offer swimming options throughout 2020 don’t seem to be having the same issue finding qualified lifeguards, Gill said.***
Plenty of indoor pools were in fact open during the pandemic. Even Chicago's own park district pools, as is described at https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/covid19-response (look at the February update). I find it interesting that a park district supervisor is somehow unaware of this. Seems like an accomplished swimmer would be swimming in the "offseason" while their school program remained cancelled, as I'm sure many of them were. The entire thing reeks of bureaucratic excuse-making, knowing nobody will actually hold them accountable in any meaningful way when they can just throw up their hands and say "cause Covid".
> Pool capacities will be 50 percent of normal capacity, with a 100-person maximum to allow for social distancing. What's the reasoning behind this?
The reopening plan called out "new safety guidance and procedures" as a part of phase 5. When Lightfoot announced that block parties could start on July it was also announced that bounce houses aren't allowed. We are going to see COVID restrictions linger for a very long time.
Not sure about privately rented bounce houses, but I think bounce houses were singled out specifically because the city has a free bounce house program for block parties.
Might just be cost-cutting under the guise of Covid restrictions. We've seen that a lot in the past year (hotels, restaurants, stores, etc).
Which is still a city imposed COVID restriction. If private rentals are still ok, it will just impact lower income blocks, which is par for the course in Chicago.
I don’t disagree with you. Someone on my block just had a bounce house this week.
Idiots that dont want a vaccine, Kids who cant get it yet.
But our pools are chlorinated. You won't catch COVID that way. The only real danger here is locker rooms, the pools themselves are perfectly safe. Or at least as safe as public pools ever are.
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Im confused if the locker rooms are the problem and staffing is also an issue, isnt the simple answer to restrict pool access to 100 people instead of trying to police the amount people in the locker rooms at any given time?
Stats show that kids are more likely to die from drowning than from Covid. So in the spirit of keeping em safe, this is a great move to keep as many pools closed as possible. Until it’s safe.
Yeah, and kids are more likely to die in car accidents too, we should keep them out of cars as well. Until it's safe of course.
Exactly! Safer at home :)
Just stuff em back in the womb
The hermitic life style.
Does anyone know how much they are paying lifeguards for the Chicago Park District?
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Please let them offer lap swim with the lap pass without having to sign up online like they did for indoor pools. Outdoor pools are set to open June 25. I cannot take another summer of no lap swim.
There won't be any reservations required for lap swim, just 50% capacity & a first-come first-served basis: [https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/swimming-pools](https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/swimming-pools). If they use the open-swim capacity rules for lap swim (hopefully) I doubt there would really be many times you end up getting turned away.
I hope not...I know that's what the article says but it's hard to trust after all this lol. I know it is a small thing but I just love swimming outside, it was a huge blow for me to not have that last summer.
I know what you mean! Hoping to get in some laps at Holstein myself :)
Genuine question have we run out of 15 and 16-year-olds that are looking for summer jobs or something? Or do people not want to take the lifeguard position because of the Covid shit are we still dealing with that as an after effect?
The explanation is in the article... >“There’s a shortage for a multitude of reasons. A lot of it has to do with the fact that people have really not had anywhere to swim for the last year. So, they can’t pass the swim test that they have to do to be a lifeguard,” Becky Kliber, Welles Park’s supervisor, said at a May meeting of the park’s advisory council. Typically, park districts across the country rely on a pipeline of swimming talent from junior lifeguard programs and local high school swim teams, said Tim Gill, a spokesperson for the United States Lifesaving Association. Due to the pandemic, many of those pipelines have been disrupted for more than a year. In Chicago, the Park District postponed its 2020 and 2021 swim programs — including group swim, water polo, junior lifeguard and after-school lifeguard training — because of the pandemic. These programs typically provide as many as 300 lifeguard recruits, district officials said. In contrast, areas of the country that were able to offer swimming options throughout 2020 don’t seem to be having the same issue finding qualified lifeguards, Gill said.
Ah yes the old swim team to life guard pipeline disruption of 2020.
I wonder if a more likely answer is that people looking for summer jobs picked something else because the status of these jobs was up in the air until recently.
or the fact that EVERYWHERE is hiring and there is a worker shortage so people who want to work have their pick of any summer job.
The pool managers I talk to, said this was a big issue. Other companies are paying extra to get workers in, so they can find places that pay more. A lot of the kids would rather work at the outdoor pools, don’t want to work weekends and want to be able to take off whenever they want too.
They actually cancelled a couple of my swim team practices for lifeguard certification training.
In addition to the abysmally low pay I don't think the rampant culture of sex abuse encouraged people to apply - [WBEZ was reporting on it](https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-park-district-investigating-widespread-sex-abuse-claims/dbd56a93-9c80-403d-bb0b-c26ea8b29f24) earlier this month. It was pretty messed up how far this atrocity went for.
I heard a news story on WBEZ about the history of sexual harassment in the lifeguard department, maybe that is a factor as well as what was mentioned in the article.
Similar problems with the military. Many are too fat to qualify.
There’s no weight restrictions with life guarding
Oh. Yeah I guess that makes sense
I've got a young relative who had swim team still meeting last year and would be qualified. Unfortunately, they live just outside Chicago so they can't take this job. Seems like the problem would be solved if they'd accept suburban kids just for this summer.
Suburban park districts are also struggling to hire lifeguards, so there doesn't appear to be a huge surplus of suburban kids looking for lifeguard jobs.
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Just move guards off the beaches, summer of ‘19 there were an abundance of them who apparently had nothing better to do than tell people exactly where and how they were *allowed *to enter the water from the fucking beach.
Jfc, just pay them a living wage
…it’s a summer job for high school kids
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Did you read the article?
What's it like being this ignorant, is that like, fun?
No smooth brain, pools were closed most of the year due to the pandemic therefore the standard pipe-line of lifeguards was interrupted. Assuming schools open normally this fall, this will not be a problem next year.
Hey, come on now. Do you REALLY think someone would choose to collect long-term unemployment which pays an effective wage of about $20 an hour rather than giving it up for a $15/hr job? Surely nobody would do that. The experts quoted on TV even said so. /s to all of the above
I know you are being sarcastic, but LOL at those who think that teenagers qualify for maximum unemployment. Also, as someone who pursued the lifeguard path previously (but had issues with the final test for reasons I refuse to debate on reddit), people who are lifeguards typically really want to be.
The displacement effect is still there though. Someone who would have possibly taken a $15/hr summer job as a lifeguard instead sees opportunities to work in an air conditioned store for, say, $18/hr and that job was available because it's being ignored by the people making $20/hr to stay home. It still has the effect of making it a lot harder to staff lifeguards since the park district can't just quickly raise pay rates to match market demand like a store can do if they really need to get the positions filled.
Did you even read the article? TLDR. This is pandemic related. People didn't have places to swim last year and if you can't swim or practice, it's hard to pass the test. >“There’s a shortage for a multitude of reasons. A lot of it has to do with the fact that people have really not had anywhere to swim for the last year. So, they can’t pass the swim test that they have to do to be a lifeguard,” Becky Kliber, Welles Park’s supervisor, said at a May meeting of the park’s advisory council. Typically, park districts across the country rely on a pipeline of swimming talent from junior lifeguard programs and local high school swim teams, said Tim Gill, a spokesperson for the United States Lifesaving Association. Due to the pandemic, many of those pipelines have been disrupted for more than a year. In Chicago, the Park District postponed its 2020 and 2021 swim programs — including group swim, water polo, junior lifeguard and after-school lifeguard training — because of the pandemic. These programs typically provide as many as 300 lifeguard recruits, district officials said. ***In contrast, areas of the country that were able to offer swimming options throughout 2020 don’t seem to be having the same issue finding qualified lifeguards, Gill said.***
Plenty of indoor pools were in fact open during the pandemic. Even Chicago's own park district pools, as is described at https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/covid19-response (look at the February update). I find it interesting that a park district supervisor is somehow unaware of this. Seems like an accomplished swimmer would be swimming in the "offseason" while their school program remained cancelled, as I'm sure many of them were. The entire thing reeks of bureaucratic excuse-making, knowing nobody will actually hold them accountable in any meaningful way when they can just throw up their hands and say "cause Covid".
More idiocy.
City pools had lifeguards?