With June just around the corner, Pittsburgh residents are waiting to hear when, and if, their neighborhood public pool will open for the summer.
Pittsburgh hasn’t been able to open all 18 of its pools since 2019. And some may remain closed again this year as the city struggles to recruit enough lifeguards. Kathryn Vargas, director of Pittsburgh’s Parks and Recreation Department, told WESA that at least a dozen city pools will open this summer.
“Right now ... we have about as many guards as we need to be comparable to what we were able to open last year,” she said.
Vargas declined to say which pools would open, but said the city will staff pools that have been well-attended in previous years in neighborhoods across the city. Vargas suggested the city could announce which pools will open within the next week.
Typically, Pittsburgh schedules the start of its pool season after the end of the school year, as many of the city’s lifeguards are teenagers.
Help wanted
The parks department will begin training new lifeguards Tuesday, but it’s still crunch time for those trying to get more kids interested in the summer job.
“We are definitely still actively recruiting lifeguards because we definitely want … to be able to open as many pools as we can,” Vargas said.
To entice more people to apply, Pittsburgh leaders increased the pay for new lifeguards from $16 per hour to $16.48. Experienced lifeguards could make up to $19.05 per hour. But Vargas added that the city has also tried more targeted recruitment strategies.
Among them is a pilot program operated by the parks department and Westinghouse High School. A “lifeguard academy” for students in the school’s Emergency Response Technology program was designed to increase the number of interested recruits, and to give students swimming experience. The city began recruiting kids in the winter for classes that began in March.
Vargas said the academy is designed for kids who are interested in becoming EMTs or other types of first responders after high school. She said some members of the city’s water rescue team started as city pool lifeguards.
“For a lot of people, [lifeguarding] could be the first exposure to a public safety kind of role," she said. "It might spark an interest in something like EMS work."
The city has also partnered with the Red Cross to add staff later in the season by taking on returning lifeguards who simply need to be recertified.
If the current batch of lifeguards completes their certification requirements, Vargas said the city will have enough staff to run about 12 pools, the same number as in 2022. In 2021, the city was only able to open eight pools.
Labor shortage
The lifeguard staffing struggle is born out of a shortage that began during the pandemic, Vargas said. In 2020, the city didn’t open any of its pools, in accordance with public health recommendations. As a result, certifications lapsed and kids found other jobs.
“You take two years off of having that summer job, you find other things to do,” Vargas said. “We are kind of in a rebuilding phase for our aquatics team.”
A shortage of lifeguards isn’t just a Pittsburgh problem. Last summer, NPR reported that thousands of public pools and beaches across the country had fewer lifeguards, leading some to reduce hours or close altogether. It’s forced cities across the country to get creative with how they recruit and keep lifeguards. Colorado Public Radio reported a group of retirees — an untraditional age group for a typical lifeguard — stepped up to get certified and keep their community pool running.
In Pittsburgh, some city leaders are urging the parks department to be similarly creative.
“It doesn't necessarily have to be a teen,” argued City Council President Theresa Kail Smith last week. She suggested that recruitment efforts could be improved among older residents interested in seasonal employment.
“It could be a grandparent, it could be a parent, it could be somebody who's off in the summer, a teacher, a school aide,” she said. “As long as you know how to swim.”
But the city already hires educators.
“We absolutely have teachers,” Vargas said. “And two of our core management staff are teachers [that] help with swim team during the school year.”
Vargas said that in addition to teachers, the city has also recruited school crossing guards to work the front desk as cashiers. But she added many teachers and school staff don’t qualify to be lifeguards because they don’t live within city limits.
And changing the city resident requirement is not something Kail Smith supports. “I know there's enough kids in the city of Pittsburgh that need jobs,” she said.
Cooling rising temperatures
Deciding which pools to keep closed for the summer has been a source of controversy over the last few years. Last summer, the city originally intended not to open Sue Murray Pool in the North Side, but yielded to public pressure and eventually staffed the pool. Doing so required reducing the hours at the nearby Riverview Park pool.
Beyond youth summer employment, city leaders have stressed that community pools are a vital resource for kids in the summer. City Council recently launched an advisory committee tasked with opening more youth and family resource centers in the city; the committee believes that additional community centers can deter violent crime among youth.
Kail Smith said last week that pools could be an “important,” deterrent, and that the city ought to “make sure people have a place to swim all summer long because we know how important this is to our community and to a thriving city.”
Vargas echoed Kail Smith’s sentiments about the importance of public pools.
“We really do appreciate the role that lifeguards play for us in the summertime,” she said. “It's a big job.”
