CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va (WRIC) – A group of Chesterfield County parents are pushing to bring club swim teams to county high schools.
Unlike other area school districts, Chesterfield students have never had the chance to do competitive swimming for their schools.
Julia Gagulska has been swimming most of her life. She’s a freshman at Midlothian High School and a swimmer at NOVA Swimming in Henrico.
“I just really enjoy it, I think it’s a really good sport. It keeps me balanced with school and everything,” she said. “But if there was a high school swim team, I’d definitely do it.”
That’s what Cassie Dickerson and other Chesterfield parents are working on– creating SWIMChesterfield.
“Our goal is for every high school in Chesterfield county to have a swim team and I’d like to see if VHSL,” said Dickerson, who is on the group’s board of directors.
For now, they’d be independent clubs managed and funded by parents.
“A lot of my friends who go to other counties, they all have high school swimming, and they all love it,” said Claire Dickerson, Cassie’s daughter. Claire also swims at NOVA and is a Chesterfield high school student.
“There’s so much interest, I think it’s going to be a positive thing,” said Cassie Dickerson.
More than 1,200 people have already liked the group’s Facebook page since SWIMChesterfield was created a couple of months ago.
“It’s really fun to have people who have so much in common with you and have the same schedule. And if we had high school swimming you’d be with people who have the same classes…you would represent the school,” said Claire Dickerson.
Group leaders say several local pools hope to partner with them and just need the school system’s approval to make it a reality.
“We’ve dealt with insurance, and we’re working on a meet schedule. So we’re almost done with our proposal and then we’ll submit it to the county hopefully within the next month,” said Cassie Dickerson.
Find out more about SWIMChesterfield here.
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