The City of Windsor is back to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels when it comes to how many lifeguards are on staff.
Jennifer Knights, Executive Director of Recreation and Culture, says they are back up to their regular complement of instructors and lifeguards, which sits at 220 staff, including 75 new staff who have joined since Fall 2023.
As the city emerged from the pandemic, it faced a shortage of lifeguards as the majority of the positions are held by high school, college, and university students, and the students already qualified and in the system had moved on during the shutdowns or were not able to keep their qualifications up to date.
Since then, the city has been working to add more lifeguards to provide more public programs such as learn-to-swim, aquatic leadership, and aquafit, while also providing lifeguards at the city's indoor and outdoor pools, along with the Adventure Bay Family Water Park.
Knights says they had to dial back on their programs after the pandemic.
"Now we're able to offer more of everything. So our learn-to-swim program complement has expanded, and we've been able to offer more spaces. Our leadership programs as well. We've been able to expand the hours at Adventure Bay this summer, which is something we've been working on since the pandemic, and we're at the point where we do have enough staff," she says.
Knights says it takes well over 100 hours to become certified as a lifeguard and an instructor.
"Then we provide training specific to the facility or the facilities that they're working at, and additionally, we also do ongoing training for some to keep their skills up," she says.
Windsor's six outdoor pools will open for the summer as of Saturday, June 29.
The expanded hours of operation at the Adventure Bay Family Water Park at 401 Pitt Street West will go from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. to 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., also as of June 29.