These Kansas City area swimming pools can’t open this summer. Here’s why

Kansas City is scheduled to open its public swimming pools June 11. Whether that will actually happen is anyone’s guess.

“The worst case scenario, we can either not open all the pools, we can shorten hours, we can stagger pool openings … there’s all kinds of alternatives we can do to make sure that everybody gets a chance to enjoy their swimming season,” said Doug Schroeder, administrative officer for Kansas City Parks and Recreation.

The problem, one seen across the nation, is a shortage of lifeguards.

Overland Park won’t open Bluejacket Pool because of the shortage.

“Depending on what we can do in terms of lifeguard hiring and recruitment, and retaining lifeguards, (we’re) maybe looking to reopen that in a future summer,” said Meg Ralph, communications manager for Overland Park.

Unlike some recent summers, other area cities, including Lee’s Summit, Shawnee, Olathe, Lenexa and KCK/Wyandotte County, are able to open all their pools. The Kansas City spray parks are also open.

Overland Park had already decommissioned Marty Pool, with plans to turn it into a park. And Kansas City had closed four of its pools because of infrastructure concerns.

Initially, Overland Park officials thought they could open just two outdoor pools: Young’s Pool and Tomahawk Ridge Aquatic Center. Later, the city found it could open Stonegate Pool as well.

“Working with schools and existing lifeguards that we held over throughout the winter, they were able to hire more than 200 guards and so we were actually able to open a third pool this year,” Ralph said.

But that wasn’t enough to be able to open Bluejacket as well.

The lifeguard shortage

The shortage is a pressing issue nationwide.

“We saw it coming about 20 years ago,” said B.J. Fisher II, director of health and safety for the American Lifeguard Association. “What we were seeing was there was a lot of development with building community pools and public pools across the country … but the youth that we were relying on were not in the numbers.”

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a plunge in the already dwindling workforce.

“The number of lifeguard candidates that we normally, historically, over the past several decades, have brought into the profession every year — these are new lifeguards getting trained — is approximately 300,000,” Fisher said, citing major training entities, including the American Lifeguard Association.

In 2021, that number was around 100,000, he said.

“There will be increased drownings as there were last summer,” Fisher predicted.

“What we as parents have a tendency to do is let the lifeguards be the babysitter, and we can’t do it,” he said. “Designate someone in your group (so) that they’re the one that knows that they’re supposed to be actually watching the kids.”

Fisher still has hope for the industry.

“We’ve been relying heavily on the youth and we should have, in addition, been looking at other age groups,” Fisher said. “We need to move over and get the retirees back into the workforce — let them know that there’s a patriotic demand for them to come down, and it’s a great position.”

Other pool closures

On top of staffing shortages, four Kansas City pools are closed due to infrastructure issues.

The Arbor Villa, Ashland Square and Jarboe pools are permanently closed due to an outdated filtration system that can pose a health risk to swimmers, the parks department says. At 80 years old, the Swope Park Pool is also closed.

“Due to its age, the facility has deteriorated significantly and is unsafe to operate at this time,” the parks department says on its website. The city will be evaluating the pool for the future.

The last time all of Overland Park’s pools were open was the summer of 2019, Ralph said.

“The city has an overall parks and recreation master plan. … The recommendation that came out of that plan was to focus on regional attraction pools, rather than small neighborhood pools, which is what Marty started as when the city acquired it,” Ralph said. “Young’s Pool sort of serves that purpose to the area that Marty previously served.”

“Tomahawk Ridge Aquatic Center, which is also a larger pool complex that has slides and lap pools and leisure pools, similar to Young’s Pool, serves it for the center of the city,” she added.

To learn more on how to become a lifeguard in Kansas City, call 816-350-2628 or go to midwestpool.com/employment.