“We need to work with the state legislature to come up with more capital programs for pools at the end of the day,” he says. In Seattle, Diaz says they also have capacity limitations with too few pools for the amount of people who want to use them. “There's a shortage on teachers, a shortage on lifeguards,” he says, “and finding those people that are wanting to take on those jobs and in those jobs is becoming less and less easy to do.”
Waitlists - especially coming out of the pandemic - are still high nationally, Spiers says. And that's just choice that parents should not have to make in this day and age.”Įven just finding an open spot within a swim class can be a problem. “So you're either making choices about which child is going to know how to swim and which child is not going to know how to swim, or none of your children are going to be able to learn how to swim. “Imagine if you have more than one child, there's no way you can afford those types of costs,” Diaz says.
Whether families send their kids go to a YMCA-type program or attend a higher-end private swim school, they can pay anywhere from $10 to $55 a lesson, Spiers says. Jim Spiers, president of the national nonprofit Stop Drowning Now owns swim schools across the country. “The way that Swim Seattle works is that you go through a series of six sessions that take you to a point and a goal of being comfortable in the water,” Diaz says, “learning basic safety etiquette, learning how to swim, use the right types of stroke, how to breathe, learning what the water is, how not to panic so that you're really comfortable in an environment.”Ĭost is a barrier for many families to afford swimming lessons in Seattle and beyond. The pilot program offers free swimming lessons to school-aged children to help them become proficient in swimming. We are a city of water surrounded by lakes and the sea and the coast.”ĭiaz helps lead a new initiative called Swim Seattle to tackle racial disparities in drowning deaths. “It's particularly important in the city of Seattle. “That disparity exists for a variety of reasons, and what we're talking about is a life skill, a basic human right that all individuals should possess, but particularly children,” says AP Diaz, the superintendent of Seattle Parks and Recreation. The impact of those barriers can be fatal, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting the drowning death rate for Black Americans is 1.5 times higher than the rate for white Americans. (Courtesy of Seattle Parks and Recreation)Ĭhildren of color face multiple barriers when it comes to learning how to swim. Kids learn to swim at a recent Swim Seattle event.
0 kommentar(er)
