The new addition to Pleasant Valley High School includes a new gym and a new tower full of classrooms. The project costs 21.5 million dollars and yet, the distance of PV’s swimming pool is wrong. This automatically makes any times swam there irrelevant because the rest of the state swims a different distance. However, due to the new regulations set by the state of Iowa, the administration is in the process of redesigning the pool.

Pleasant Valley’s pool was built in 1987 when there were rumors about the regulation length of high school swimming pools becoming 25 meters instead of 25 yards. PV built the pool based off these rumors. While the difference between a meter and a yard may not seem significant, it makes a 50 (the shortest high school event) five yards longer than it is supposed to be, and the 500 (the longest high school event) 50 yards longer. This difference is so significant that when athletes compete at PV, they swim the 400 meter freestyle instead of the 500 yard freestyle.

This year, the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU) decided to implement cut times for the state meet. Rather than state athletes being determined solely by their performance at the district meet, athletes now have the opportunity to qualify for state before districts if they achieve a certain time. The time cuts for the events are in yards.

During the 2018 swim season, the PV girls team had about half as many chances to qualify for the state swim meet. Pleasant Valley High School’s athletic director, D’Anne Kroemer, stated, “When the girls athletic union changed the swim qualifying format, immediately upon that decision we had USA Swimming come in and do a full evaluation of our pool, investigating our options for changing meters to yards.”

Kroemer recognizes that these changes are critical for future Pleasant Valley team successes. She stated, “We are in the process right now of getting design and cost options with the plan to move forward recognizing those changes have been made. We want our students to have every equal opportunity to qualify for the state championship as all of the other swim schools in the state of Iowa.”

Carly Lundry, a third year member of the varsity swim team agreed, “It’s good that the administration can finally see that our team has been at a disadvantage for years.”