Prerequisite: A lifeguard on P.E. duty

To prevent future drownings, school officials should hire lifeguards and decrease class size

The tragic drowning of 17-year-old John Erlanson in the Atascadero High School swimming pool May 7 has prompted calls for more rigorous safety standards for high school pools — and rightly so. At the very least, all schools should follow guidelines of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, which recommend that P.E. classes have one teacher present for every 30 students.

Common sense tells us that students are more likely to be injured if they’re playing basketball, running track or swimming laps than if they’re sitting in a classroom taking notes.

For that reason, we don’t believe that P.E. teachers should be expected to supervise as many as 40 or 50 students engaged in any physical activity — especially swimming.

Some districts do follow more rigorous staffing guidelines for swimming. The Lucia Mar Unified School District, for instance, has one staff member present for every 25 students during swimming activities. That’s more like it.

Other districts, including Santa Maria Joint Union High School District, have taken the additional step of hiring lifeguards.

That’s ideal.

Lifeguards — stationed in the tall chairs that give them a clear view of the entire pool — are in a much better position to quickly spot a student in trouble than a teacher standing on the deck.

In the aftermath of last week’s drowning, state Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, suggested looking at a uniform, statewide policy that would require lifeguards at all public school pools.

That’s an idea worth exploring.

Yes, it would mean some additional cost, coming at a time when neither the state nor our local school districts have money to spare for new mandates.

But if the hiring of lifeguards would prevent future incidents such as the one that took the life of John Erlanson, we think it’s a cost we should all be willing to pitch in and share.