Portland Parks and Recreation last year quietly discontinued a pilot program that allowed for marginalized families to have the first chance at signing up for swim lessons ahead of the general population.

Parks bureau spokesman Mark Ross says the city ended the program because it “had key limitations”, and says it’s replaced it with a new program with similar goals but a different approach.

Among them, according to Ross: the earlier program failed to reach “new or underserved users as intended”; the parks bureau said the program was “hard to explain [and] placed burdens on partners”, and the parks bureau found “better alternatives”.

The initial program offered early swim lesson sign up to people of color, households experiencing poverty, seniors, teens, immigrants, refugees, and peopl

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