1star might seem pretty harsh but I think a near drowning incident at swim lessons deserves even less. When my now 5year old started classes at Evo we had an amazing experience and loved her teachers! She quickly progressed and was doing the swim/ float/ swim sequence across the entire pool. Whenever we would swim for fun at our community pool we would notice that she didn't know how to swim at all if she jumped into the pool or didn't start out with the swim, float, swim sequence. We let EVO know right away but they assured us that it's super common for kids to not know how to translate their learned skills into other environments and that we should start with basic beginning steps at home and teach her to enforce her skills in other situations. After months and months of classes we were frustrated that she knew how to swim in class but not anywhere else, but we trusted them and went with it.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. She was moved to the outdoor pool that doesn't have a lifeguard on duty and the bench that the kids swim to is a much smaller bench with nowhere else to grab on to. My daughter was half way down the lane and the teacher felt confident that she knew how to get to the bench so he moved on to the next child. Well when she got to the bench, the kids were on it and there was no room for her. She had no where to go. I watched her try to grab on to the nearby ropes (lane dividers) which just sunk down immediately, she started screaming "help me I'm drowning" but nobody heard her. She continued to do this for about 30seconds and then went under. I then stood up and yelled for the teacher to get her. He didn't hear me and it was her turn to swim back so he called her name thinking that she was playing under water. She was under the water for a good 10-15sec before he finally went and pulled her out of the water. She thankfully had enough air but after the lesson told me that she "really wanted to breathe the water because she couldn't breathe anymore". The teacher had no idea what happened and seemed confused when I asked about it after the lesson.
We cancelled classes because we realized that they were moving on to conditioning her technique but she still wouldn't be able to survive in a situation like what she experienced. All we want is for her to know how to survive in a scary situation and after almost a year of lessons she still doesn't know how to do that.
We spoke with the director who was really nice but it was clear that they didn't care about what could be improved to prevent another child from experiencing this. They actually had the nerve to say that this situation had to do with my daughters lack of confidence in believing that she could implement her learned skills. Nothing about how there is no lifeguard on duty to watch for these incidents, that the bench is way too small for a class of 4, that there is nowhere to grab onto outside, or that the teacher didn't check in on her in the time that it took him to help three other kids swim to the other side.
We started her in ISR classes the following week and the new teacher asked if she had experienced a near drowning incident because she had significant ptsd. She worked with our daughter and after only two weeks of ISR lessons my daughter is confident in the water, jumps into the pool and swims to the other side with no help. She can also tread water and float for as long as she needs to. She was also tested while wearing winter clothes just in case something happened in the winter. During her test she was able to float and hold her float for a good 10mins.
We really hope that EVO takes our situation to heart and looks into making some changes to keep this situation from happening again in the future. Keeping children safe especially in the water should be their top priority!