School swimming in Bad Wildungen: Start after the autumn holidays

Swimming is not only a popular leisure activity, but can also save lives in an emergency. For this reason, swimming lessons have also been anchored in the school curriculum. However, since the closure of the Heloponte swimming pool in June 2023, the schools in the Bad Wildungen catchment area no longer have a public swimming pool to offer swimming lessons. To ensure that children from the third to fifth grade still have the opportunity to learn to swim at school, the Waldeck-Frankenberg district, together with the town of Bad Wildungen, has developed a solution with private providers.

This summer, the magistrate of the city of Bad Wildungen had to close the public swimming pool Heloponte due to increased danger of collapse. However, the pool was not only used for the leisure activities of the citizens, but also by the neighbouring schools for their swimming lessons. "So that the schools can continue to teach their pupils to swim, we have contacted the local clinics and hotels together with the district administration and jointly developed a solution," explained Mayor Ralf Gutheil.

As the school authority for the district's own schools, the district of Waldeck-Frankenberg is now promptly concluding a private law agreement with operators of clinics and hotels in Bad Wildungen - which operate their own swimming pool facilities - so that swimming lessons can resume after the autumn holidays. "The contracts are concluded for the duration of the current school year and automatically extended for another year. This enables the operators and the schools to plan for the long term," explained District Administrator Jürgen van der Horst.

When drawing up the contract, the times of use of the pools for spa operations were also adapted to the school curricula. "Our spa operations must be able to continue to maintain their spa operations in addition to school swimming. This had to be reconciled and the best solution for schools and businesses had to be developed jointly," added Ralf Gutheil.

The discussions also focused on clarifying the question of costs, the district administrator explained: "The prices in the agreements were calculated by the hotels and clinics to cover costs and are borne by the schools through the school budget earmarked for school swimming. Should this not be sufficient due to the constantly rising costs in the baths - which we are also experiencing in the public baths - the school can also use funds for this from other areas or think about a mixed calculation."

The transport of the school classes from the respective school to the corresponding swimming pool is organised by Energie Waldeck-Frankenberg GmbH as part of the cross-transport service. After the autumn holidays, the children of the third to fifth grade of the neighbouring schools to Bad Wildungen can thus look forward to swimming lessons again and prepare for the next swimming excursion.

Keywords:

Schools and Education Department Sports and Youth Work Department