Concerned About Costs, Some Schools Pull Plugs From Swimming Pools

By Marianne Hurst

Students at Fillmore High School and local residents have enjoyed taking a dip in the school's pool on hot, sunny days for nearly 50 years. No more. The watery fun ended in 1999, when city officials told the school to close the facility because of health and safety violations.

"The bottom of the pool surface is very rough," explained Barbara Spieler, the director of business services for the 3,800-student Fillmore, Calif., school district, 55 miles north of Los Angeles in rural Ventura County. "The plumbing is also from the 1950s, so if that should break, we'd have to replace it all."

Other districts around the country are also pulling the plug on their swim facilities, especially aging pools like Fillmore High's that can be extremely costly to maintain and bring up to modern standards. Many districts that are feeling the current economic pinch say the money...