1 week Ago
Noni Devold emerges from the pool, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La. STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Swimmers and their instructors engage in the pool, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La. STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Swim instructor Aiden Hernandez shares a smile while working with Cash Jefferson, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Swim instructor Ashley Stevenson works with Alaiyah Ramsey, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La. STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Swim instructor Aiden Hernandez works with Ayden St. Luce, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Parents watch as their young swimmers and their instructors engage in the pool, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La. STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK From left, EBR Schools Superintendent LaMont Cole chats with Dr. Shavon Helaire and her daughter, Harleigh Helaire, after Harleigh’s swim class, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Swim instructor Ashley Stevenson, right, works with James Gaspard, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La. STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Swim instructor Haylee Johnson works with Liam Nelson, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La. STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Southdowns Pre-K Center Principal Shalika Scott, left, looks on as Crawfish Aquatics adaptive aquatics director Sarah Widdick addresses parents of the school’s swim program, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Swimmers and their instructors engage in the pool, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La. STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Southdowns Pre-K Center Principal Shalika Scott addresses parents of the school’s swim program, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La. STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Swim instructor Ashley Stevenson, right, works with Alaiyah Ramsey, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Completion medals await swimmers of the Southdowns Pre-K Center swim program, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at Crawfish Aquatics on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge, La. STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save A handful of three-year-olds from Southdowns School on Wednesday took to the indoor pool at Crawfish Aquatics in Baton Rouge to showcase their new skills in the water, including simple strokes, the backstroke and how to float. They’d just spent the past 10 weeks getting free swim lessons during the school day, hitting the pool three times a week to learn the rudiments of swimming and water safety.
Southdowns School is a preschool where 60% of the children suffer from various disabilities. Principal Shalika Scott said she’s gratified to see how much progress these children have made in such a short time. She recalls in early September when the swimming classes began.
“Some of the kids were crying. They wouldn’t even go into the room where the pool is located,” Scott said. “Today one of those kids was crying, but he was crying because he didn’t want to get out of the pool.
” Scott, who is in her second year as Southdowns principal , organized the new swim lessons. All but 19 of the 159 children who attend Southdowns ended up signing up. Eighty students took lessons this fall, she said, and the other 60 are doing so in the spring.
The three-year-olds, the bulk of which are students with disabilities, take a bus to swim in the indoor pool at Crawfish Aquatics location at 8556 Siegen Lane . The four-year-olds, most of them regular education students, travel to the YMCA, the Paula G Manship YMCA at 8100 YMCA Plaza Drive, to learn in that facility’s outdoor pool. Scott said it was a lot of work to get the program started.
She credited the YMCA and Crawfish Aquatics for working with her to make it free for Southdown families. “I just beg and beg and beg,” Scott said. She said the classes build up children’s knowledge and confidence when they are in the water.
“It’s mainly to teach them that if they did fall in a pool they could float, they could lay on their backs and manage to get out,” Scott said. Basic water safety instruction has become common in schools in Louisiana since the passage in 2022 of the Riley Bourgeois Act, named after a 1-year-old boy who drowned in a pool in 2018 in central Lafourche Parish . But for schools like Southdowns, which don’t reach kindergarten, the 2022 law does not apply.
Scott said as far as she knows Southdowns is the only public preschool in Louisiana providing free swimming lessons to students. She said, under the current setup, the only expense for the school is to provide transportation to and from the lessons. “We wanted to not just provide academics, but give kids a gift for life,” she said.
The lessons at Crawfish Aquatics — Scott estimated they would cost about $400 if purchased privately — are an especially good value because the swimming school utilizes two adults for every child learning to swim. Crawfish Aquatics even supplies swim diapers for young tots, some of whom are not yet potty trained, Scott said. Several parents have been so taken with the lessons that they’ve since signed up for extended private lessons to pick up where the school-sponsored lessons left off, she said.
Scott’s commitment to the program is remarkable because she herself does not know how to swim. Scott, who is 45, said it wasn’t a priority in her family growing up. That will soon change.
Scott has signed up for her own swimming lessons, set to start in January. “If I am going to advocate for a program like this for my kids, I need to make sure I can swim as well,” she explained..
