New Seattle initiative offers free swim classes to low-income children

On a recent Saturday morning at Rainier Beach Pool, a gaggle of young kids donning swimming goggles stood in the shallow end of the pool, preparing to take a deep breath. 

“OK here we go, 1, 2, 3,” said instructor Dee England as the children plunged their heads below the water’s surface. After a few seconds, they came up for air, with England cheering them on: “That was super cool, that was super cool, I love it.”  

Across the United States, including in Seattle, kids from low-income families and children of color are more likely to face barriers accessing swimming and water safety classes, but a new city initiative launching this summer called Swim Seattle hopes to make it a little easier. 

Under the yearlong pilot program, Seattle Parks and Recreation will offer free swimming classes and water safety workshops to 250 children ages 6 to 16. The kids, who have already been selected by the city, come from families who have received Parks Department scholarships for swim classes.

The pilot program builds on efforts by a slew of local organizations to provide water safety education, including No More Under, the YMCA of Greater Seattle, Seattle Children’s hospital, the University of Washington and Washington State Parks. On Saturday, the YMCA of Greater Seattle hosted a celebration event for the new initiative during its annual Healthy Kids Day at its Meredith Mathews East Madison location. 

City officials and local water safety advocates hope the new initiative will make basic swimming and water safety lessons more accessible.

“We have a very ambitious goal, and achievable goal, and that is in the Seattle area, we want every child by the time they reach 10 years old to be able to swim,” Mayor Bruce Harrell told the crowd during an April kickoff event at the Rainier Beach Community Center. 

Among the students splashing around was 6-and-a-half-year-old Smithen Saint Thomas. He began taking swimming lessons consistently last year, said his mother, Opokua Oduro, as she stood at the side of the pool watching him.

“He’s learned so much, it’s been incredible, crawl stroke, backstroke,” she said. Oduro said while she is not the most confident swimmer, taking her son to the pool has encouraged her to get better at it.  

But Oduro said scoring classes at city pools was challenging, with Seattle’s increasingly hot summer days driving demand even as lifeguard shortages forced closures at local pools and beaches. 

“It’s very competitive to get lessons, you have to be online in the first four, five minutes [registration opens] to get a spot,” she said. 

The new program is meant to address a long-standing public health and safety issue in the world of water recreation: Low-income residents and residents of color are less likely to be able to swim well compared with their wealthier, white peers. 

It’s a reality seen at pools and beaches throughout the U.S., the result of a confluence of factors: a lack of affordable swim lessons, cultural or religious norms, limited transportation, the endurance of racist stereotypes, concerns about protecting natural hair, fears about swimming passed down generationally, and the legacy of racial discrimination at public facilities and parks. 

“The city of Seattle … is a city of water, a city of lakes, and rivers and the Sound and the ocean,” said Seattle Parks and Recreation Superintendent AP Diaz. “Here, more than most places, we have a duty to children to equip them with a lifesaving skill such as swimming.” 

Nationwide, 64% of Black children and 45% of Hispanic children have no or low swimming ability, compared with 40% of white children, a 2017 study from the USA Swimming Foundation and the University of Memphis found. About 4 in 5 children in families with a household income less than $50,000 have no or low swimming ability, the study also found. 

Failing to address the disparity in who can swim, and who can swim safely, has grave consequences, water safety experts and city officials have warned.

In King County, Black residents make up about 7% of the population, but constituted 17% of drowning deaths last year, according to Tony Gomez, the violence and injury prevention manager for Public Health – Seattle & King County. Overall, people of color are more likely to die by drowning than white people in the U.S. 

“The statistics are pretty daunting,” said Loria Yeadon, CEO of the YMCA of Greater Seattle, which is a partner in the city initiative. “It won’t change without collective action.”

Lessons under Swim Seattle will begin this summer at city pools, with additional monthly workshops on topics like skin care and hair care during swimming, conquering fears, and best practices in open water, said Seattle Parks spokesperson Rachel Schulkin. The city hopes to eventually expand the program to enroll more children, she added.

While this year’s Swim Seattle cohort has already been identified, the city still offers its usual programming of swim lessons at indoor pools. Priority registration opens on the Seattle Parks and Recreation website May 16 for families eligible for scholarships, with general registration opening two weeks later.