Hamilton parents fed up with pool wait times; Kitchener parent calls enrollment ‘The Hunger Games’

by arslan_ahmed | April 27, 2023 1:17 pm

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Parents in Hamilton are frustrated with the long wait times at the city’s pools and the limited time allocated per slot. Meanwhile, a reporter for The Record describes the anguish and anxiety of the process of enrolling her daughter into Kitchener’s swimming lessons as playing “The Hunger Games.”

According to a report by CBC News[2], Magda Tigchelaar has learned from experience to arrive at the pool at least 30 minutes early when taking her five-year-old daughter for a swim at Bernie Morelli Recreation Centre in Hamilton. Due to the limited number of swim times offered on holidays, weekends, and after-school hours, there is an overwhelming demand on the few sessions available, making it difficult to secure a spot.

The report continues by relating how Tigchelaar and other parents have expressed frustration with the schedule’s lack of accommodation for families with young children and the website’s difficulty in finding programs at other recreation centres. They are requesting more pool time on Sundays and for the city to conduct a survey to improve access to programming. The city says schedules are based on community demand and it plans to add an extra morning swim in the spring.

However, Councilor Nrinder Nann notes a lifeguard shortage in Hamilton and suggests adding more swimming access for families after school and on weekends. Despite her concerns, Laura Kerr, the city’s manager of healthy and safe communities, says the average capacity for Sunday open swims is 40 per cent, and they are responsive to increased demand.

A reporter for The Record[3] relates the anxiety-inducing process of getting her daughter enrolled into the City of Kitchener’s swimming lesson, and says everything gets even more difficult when the parent is blind like her.

She says despite the perception that technology has accelerated almost everything, there are still some things that remain unchanged, such as the nostalgic experience of watching your child take swimming lessons. However, according to her, registering for these lessons can be a daunting task, especially when there are more people than there are available slots, causing anxiety and panic.

As a person with blindness, she expected to face accessibility challenges with the online registration process, therefore she decided to call for the registration process, but her 30 attempts for landing a call with someone were met with an answering machine. The alternative was to use the website, but it was difficult to navigate with the screen-reading software. A complaint to the city, although handled appropriately, led the reporter to the conclusion that the poorly thought-out accessibility design of the website meant she did not have a fair chance to register like everybody else. This made her feel as if she was a burden on her children.

However, she realized blindness was not the burden—rather, it was inaccessibility. The web inaccessibility issues and incorrect assumptions about technology’s impact on people with blindness affect almost every aspect of the reporter’s life. For instance, her husband, who is also blind, had to draw a digital signature with a mouse when registering their daughter for T-ball, and CAPTCHAs can also be challenging. She recalls with sadness how her daughter once told her she wished her mother was not blind, and how she needed more help than other people.

While some aspects of being blind are unavoidable, such as navigating spaces or locating lost objects, the reporter says websites, buildings, and software that are inaccessible is because they were made with the wrong design in mind. As a result, people have to ask for help when they should not have to.

Source URL: https://www.poolspamarketing.com/trade/news/hamilton-parents-fed-up-pool-wait-times-kitchener-parent-calls-enrollment-the-hunger-games/

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