SPRINGDALE — The Every Child Swims pilot program focuses on teaching students from across the School District to swim.
The initiative made a splash as 75 third graders from Jones Elementary School participated in swim testing Tuesday at the Jones Center.
It’s the entire third grade class from Jones Elementary, said Lydia Corbell, the Jones Center’s director of programming and community engagement.
There were smiles and happy shouts as the children hit the water at the Jones Center.
“Nice job. There you go,” an instructor in the pool said to a student taking the swimming assessment.
The testing is to evaluate each student’s swimming skills and water survival competency, according to a Jones Center news release. Those who didn’t meet the testing standards will automatically be eligible for free swimming lessons at the center, Corbell said.
“We’ve made a pretty significant initiative to target children who kind of missed the opportunity to learn to swim,” Corbell said. “Often, families might teach their children to swim between 4, 5 and 6.”
The center’s program is aimed at third graders, Corbell said.
“We chose third grade because, typically, if you’re in third grade and you haven’t learned to swim, you’re almost a little bit too old for swim lessons at that point,” said Jeff Poole, the center’s director of community programs. “We wanted to remove the stigma because a lot of times it becomes an embarrassment thing.”
As students who don’t know how to swim get older — say in the fifth or sixth grade — they don’t want to talk about it, Poole said.
“So you start avoiding the water, and you start maybe not going to those pool parties,” Corbell said. “So they really don’t have as many opportunities to get back in and learn to swim.”
There are an estimated 4,000 fatal, unintentional drownings in the United States each year — about 11 per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control’s website. For children ages 5-14, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death after motor vehicle crashes, according to the CDC.
Almost 40 million adults — about 15% — in the U.S. don’t know how to swim and over half, 54.7%, have never taken a swimming lesson, the CDC reported in a May news release.
Arkansas currently ranks sixth in accidental drownings despite being a landlocked state, Poole said.
“Swimming is a cultural thing,” he added. “It’s about making sure that people understand that they can swim here and that the Jones Center is a place where everyone can learn.”
Poole said his family had a pool, and he and family members learned to swim very early.
“It was kind of taken for granted,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons I think this is really important because if you don’t grow up with that culture, it’s just not something you think about. They say that if your parents don’t swim, you’re 75% more likely to drown. So we’re trying to solve that problem.”
A survey of the Jones students resulted in a “guesstimate” that about 30% of them couldn’t swim, Poole said.
Walmart provided all students with free swimsuits and swim shoes, Corbell said.
The children beamed and cheered as they received their swimming gear before heading to the pools.
“We needed to make sure they had everything they needed to get in the pool and learn to swim,” Corbell said.
It’s key for those students to know they can swim at the Jones Center anytime now, Poole said.
“They have their swimsuit,” Poole said. “They’ll have their swim instruction. They’re going to be able to understand that this place is for them. That’s really important.”
The goal is to provide lessons for any students who need them, Poole said.
“I like to say it’s an employment thing,” Poole said. “You can be a lifeguard. You can be a Navy SEAL. There’s a million jobs you can do in this life that involve swimming. Think of it as just another skill you’re adding to your toolbox.”
