Board Swimming Plan All Wet

While everybody everywhere wants to talk about the need to focus on better educating on students, the Anne Arundel Board of Education wants to spend at least $250,000 on making swimming a varsity sport.

I think that sports are a wonderful thing for students to participate in. They help the confidence of the student and it gives students a taste of the competitive edge that they are going to need once they get in the real world.

But does swimming need to be a sanctioned varsity sport, one that is paid for with taxpayer dollars. Not at the moment, no. If student performance at all twelve county high school were far above the statewide average, I could see it. If performance for students in all grades were above the statewide average, I could see it. But this money should not be spent on creating a new sport at a time where student performance in far too many county schools is not up to snuff. Besides, the market for this is already being served through non-varsity meets and other means.

When all students are being educated at a high level, then reconsider it. Until then, the idea of paying that much money to sanction swimming is all wet.