Is a child who hasn’t been taught to float legally a victim Child Endangerment? Yes. If he drowns because he can’t float, is it a felony? Yes. Half of the definition of child endangerment is actively hurting the child but the other half is not protecting a child from harm. Every child has access to water and every reasonable parent, knowing that drowning is the number one cause of accidental death in American children, has a responsibility to make sure they can float if they fall or jump into water. Here’s a link to define this legal responsibility and the legal manifestations of ignoring this fact. http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defense/criminal-offense/child-endangerment.htm.

The obvious heartbreak and hurt of everyone in the family when a child drowns should go without repeating here. But the parent’s responsibility does not end with keeping them from water. 3,000 drownings a year in the U.S. and over half a million worldwide are proof of that.

We believe it’s essential to inform everyone of their potential legal liability if their child after the age of two cannot float whether or not they actually drown. Once a child can walk, he should be given lessons that at least result in him floating for as long as it takes to rescue him or her. This is our mission and should be the mission of every caring person in America. Please contact us if you wish to learn more or to help reduce our drowning rate to zero!

 


The number one cause of accidental death is preventable!

A coalition of government, schools, and parents say: Drownproof America!                                                                  2010-2016

Much of what is needed is already in place; simply needing more support, publicity, accountability, and working together

Most people can afford swim lessons. The ones who cannot should be supported. But money isn’t the biggest problem. The problem is education and participation. How many children of the over 50,000 in Corona-Norco can swim for ten minutes? How many can float? How many would drown if they simply got in over their heads in a lake, river, backyard or public pool?

The problem begins with that question, from that we set goals to make progressively more and more of our children safe and successful.

The good news is that over 6 million people in America swim laps each week, making it the largest participation activity in the country! The bad news is that over 3,000 drownings is just the tip of the iceberg of children who aren’t watersafe.

A call to action

Four High schools and two city pools stand ready and able to accommodate thousands of children as they learn to swim. Our city learn to swim program is good as far as it goes, but it only lasts a few weeks. Our two USA Swim Teams produce international level swimmers, but combined they have less than 300 participants of the 42,500 children in the district and many more pre-schoolers.

We need a plan:

Let’s make a plan to teach ALL these kids to swim. Let’s work with the school district to bus children to the high school and city pools and have instructors ready to teach until children reach pre-defined levels of safety and proficiency in line with Red Cross and USA Swimming standards -- usually possible in sixteen weeks or less.

Fifty thousand children into fifty two weeks is simply a thousand a week. Six pools into a thousand means 166 children a week in each pool. Group lessons with four to six in each group can easily make this happen in just a couple hours each day.

It takes organization and professional guidance, but most of all it takes the will of people in leadership to make this happen.

The City and School District want a new paradigm of funding this sort of activity.  Our proposal is to charge ten dollars for each lesson, with a guarantee by instructors that children will reach levels of proficiency or lessons will be repeated free until they do. Swim schools do this all the time and we have consulted with them and the model works.

The administration of this project should be a cooperation of a professional swim school and those who govern facilities and school and city recreation departments. A simple contract should be drawn with a single purpose in mind -- the number of children who become proficient and safe will rise until all who are physically able and willing are taught each year.

Additional benefits to the schools: As funds for physical education and the need for substitutes for teacher release, planning, and conference time get thinner, sending children to take their swim lessons is a natural solution. Obviously bus scheduling will have to be organized and there is some expense to that, but the program should be virtually self-supporting.

Politics and Stupidity Standing in the way of Safety:


The APA: If you teach a child to walk before the age of 5 you still make sure they don’t wander the streets along. The APA’s reasoning for concluding children shouldn’t learn to swim before 5 is that parents will think them water safe and won’t watch them. This gives those children zero chance of survival if they do encounter a toilet, a bathtub, a bucket, a jacuzzi, a pool, the ocean. The world is 2/3 water. Get them safe as soon as possible.

The Concrete Lobby:

Building lesson pools is expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. Above ground lesson pools are cheap and functional. But the Concrete lobby makes it nearly impossible to get one put up. Heaven forbid we cut into their profits even if it saves children’s lives. very community that inlcudes children should do all it can to encourage swim lesson programs. Every community should post the percentage of children who can swim a mile.