Drowning continues to be a leading cause of death for children.
Now parents in our area have a new place to bring their children to learn how to swim.
Goldfish Swim School in Lake Ridge, at 12479 Dillingham Square, opened Tuesday, March 8. Swim lessons and water safety instruction for children ages four months to 12 years are provided at the indoor facility.
“We’re bringing the golden experience of Goldfish Swim School to families across Lake Ridge,” said Goldfish Swim School General Manager Mike Khalil. “Our team of swim instructors will be hard at work teaching kids the life-saving skill of swimming and celebrating all their achievements along the way.”
Families can enroll children in a range of swim lessons and water safety instruction that helps build life skills both in and out of the water using play-based learning in a fun and safe environment.
Private swimming instruction in Prince William County is nothing new. SwimKids, now with three locations, was the first to offer the service, and began with swimming lessons given in a backyard pool in 1997.
Crissy Bartlet, SwimKids director of operations, said 2021 was “the best year we’ve ever had,” with more children wanting to learn how to swim.
“We started at the beginning of this phenomenon,” said Bartlett. “It’s a growing industry, and it’s getting ready to blow wide open.”
In June 2021, business at SwimKids skyrocketed back to pre-pandemic levels. The school began working with more than 7,000 children four locations, Manassas, Woodbridge, Stafford County near Fredericksburg, and Leesburg.
In 2020, enrollment fell to about 2,000 per week due to coronavirus fears. Today, staff members are still masked or wearing face shields, but the pandemic fears many parents had two years ago have subsided, said Bartlett.
According to the CDC, unintentional drowning death rates among children were highest for those aged 1 to 4, with rates decreasing from 3.2 in 1999 to 2.4 in 2019.
Over the past two decades, the rate of unintentional drowning deaths among children aged 0-17 years declined 38%, from 1.6 per 100,000 in 1999 to 1.0 in 2019.
Between 1999 and 2019, unintentional drowning death rates were higher for black children than white and Hispanic children.
“The more people we can get talking about taking swimming lessons, the better,” said Bartlett. “Some lessons are like a car seat. It’s something all parents need to have.”
