Correia Middle School has received a grant from the Prevent Drowning Foundation of San Diego, an organization that wants to teach every child in the city how to swim. The grant will fund a program created by eighth-grade physical education teacher Jill Kinser.
“It’s just part of physical education class,” Kinser said. “All eighth graders take a swim class.”
Kinser created the program nine years ago to make sure that all her students would become confident in the water.
“Being from San Diego, we’re surrounded by water, whether it’s pools, rivers, lakes, and the ocean,” she said. “I just think it’s really important that all kids know how to swim for basic life-saving reasons, for safety, and to be able to participate in activities around the city and feel confident.”
Her goal as a physical education teacher is to teach students a variety of lifelong ways to stay healthy. Not everyone likes to run or participate in on-land activities, and swimming is a great form of exercise to practice as an adult.
Correia Middle partners with the Ryan Family YMCA, which is within walking distance of the school. All students are grouped by ability and receive six lessons in the pool. The instructors teach them basic swim strokes, how to float and how to get out of a pool if you fall in, all the way up to teaching Olympic-style swim strokes, depending on the level of the students.
“We’re so lucky that we’re right next to the YMCA so we’re able to develop a partnership and kind of have a shared-use agreement,” Kinser said. “It allows us, a public school, to be able to swim there so we’re really lucky.”
Kinser’s students are typically a mix of different swim levels, anywhere from beginner to intermediate, and advanced.
“Over the years, I have been surprised; it’s been about 20% of our students who are at the beginning to non-swimming group,” she said. “So each year we have a handful of students that have a complete fear of the water, can’t put their face in the water, can’t float, so we work them through that.”
Beginner swimmers feel confident in the water but can’t swim the length of a pool. The goal of the program is at the end, all kids are able to do that.
This year, the grant from the Prevent Drowning Foundation is especially helpful. Due to COVID-19, Kinser was not able to do any fundraising last year. The grant is making a full year of swim lessons possible, as well as providing money to purchase supplies like swimsuits, towels, and goggles for low-income children.
The Correia physical education swim program has had a huge impact on students. A former Correia student named Xamara wrote in a testimonial: “It gave me more confidence so I wasn’t scared of the ocean anymore. I gained so much confidence in my swimming abilities. The opportunity I had to learn made me want to give others the same chance that I got.”
Xamara is now a lifeguard and swimming instructor.
Learn more about the Prevent Drowning Foundation of San Diego at preventdrowningfoundation.org.
