During School Hours or After?
The future of the in-school swimming program at John M. Marshall Elementary School is unclear, with the East Hampton School District attempting to change it and a former teacher and longtime school board member fighting to preserve its spirit.
In its current form, the program pulls children in kindergarten through fifth grade out of class and into the pool at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, which is just across the street from the school. The kids get a 45-minute swim lesson four times per school year, which includes not just swimming techniques but also education about water safety in general.
Richard Burns, the school superintendent, says the district is retooling the program — not discontinuing it — by offering the school-day sessions for kindergarten classes only, and then sponsoring a two-hour after-school swimming program, with an instructor’s salary possibly paid for by the school district.
But John Ryan Sr., a former East Hampton teacher who sat on the school board for 18 years, says the district is effectively dismantling what he described as a highly important swimming program. One of his sons founded the in-school program six years ago, and Mr. Ryan said its effect has been to “waterproof” local children by introducing them to swimming and water safety.
According to Mr. Ryan, schools in Amagansett, Bridgehampton, Springs, Sag Harbor, Wainscott, Tuckahoe, and Southampton, along with some local early-childhood centers, also take advantage of the in-school swimming program at the RECenter. For many kids, he said, particularly those who don’t live in homes that have pools, these are the only swimming lessons they will receive.
“For our school system to drop this program or really curtail it . . . it’s just devastating, I think, and dangerous,” Mr. Ryan said.
Mr. Burns said the key issue was not the value of the program but its academic cost. The students lose too much valuable classroom time, he said.
“It’s an hour and a half of instruction the week they’re scheduled for swim,” he said. “From an educational standpoint, I just don’t find that tenable anymore.”
He later added, “I look at it as fine-tuning. We’re trying to re-establish parameters again for how to be successful [with the program]. We certainly support kids swimming, to say the least . . . in no way are we interested in axing the program.”
Another issue, Mr. Burns said, is supervision in locker rooms. Most of the supervising teachers are female, and they cannot go into the boys’ locker room.
Mr. Burns said an after-school swim program would be just as valuable. Mr. Ryan disagreed. “The pool will be jammed with kids,” he said, interfering with proper instruction.
Both men agree that the current program should be modified to fit into physical education periods rather than class time. But Mr. Ryan said he wanted assurance from the school district that it will live on for the other grades, not just kindergarten, and he is running again for a seat on the school board to try to preserve that component.
“I want to work with the system,” Mr. Ryan said. “I like the system. I think they’re doing a great job, but they’re wrong in doing this. Until I am satisfied with this particular solution, I am going to push.”