By Emily Zhao
After a year and a half of construction, the remodeling of Piedmont Hills’ pool was completed on Sat. May 13.
Across the East Side Union school district, seven schools, including Piedmont Hills, James Lick, Mt. Pleasant, Santa Teresa, Silver Creek, W. C. Overfelt and Yerba Buena high schools, are all currently remodeling their pools. All seven schools’ pool complexes originally composed of two smaller pools, but the modernization project features the fusing of both pools to create a single “super pool.”
“The new pool will provide a deep water area for competition programs separated by a peninsula walkway from the shallow area for physical education, shallow water swim practice and recreational swim programs,” according to facilities.esuhsd.org. Additionally, it will feature new “energy efficient equipment including water circulation pumps/motors, improved water filtration and disinfection systems.”
Construction first began in the winter of 2015. Since then, construction workers have demolished the outdated pool and rebuilt a new and improved version of it.
Following the completion of the pool, a school water polo team, competitive swimming team and a diving team could all potentially practice at Piedmont Hills. Since school’s pool has been out of commission for the past two swim seasons, PHHS swimmers practiced at Independence High School, sharing the pool with Independence, James Lick High and Mt. Pleasant, making a very crowded pool.
“Water polo would have to get two qualified consistent coaches to restart the program, but it is possible for (the) 2018-2019 (school year),” disclosed Physical Education Chair Peter Simos.
The district-wide budget for remodeling all seven pools was 21.6 million dollars
“I’m so excited to be able to host our own meets!” exclaimed Vatsity swimmer Chloe Nguyen. ♦
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