ESCONDIDO — By the end of the school year, thousands of elementary students will have benefited from free swimming and water safety instruction at the renovated YMCA pool through the Escondido Union School District’s afterschool program.
For years, the school district has partnered with the Escondido YMCA to provide afterschool activities and summer programs to students while parents are still at work.
Now, under the partnership, students starting in third grade at all 18 of the district’s elementary schools who take part in the YMCA after-school program will learn essential water safety practices and either how to swim or improve their swimming skills.
The district will provide transportation to the YMCA pool from each of the campuses, which will rotate weekly to ensure everyone gets a chance to swim. The plan is to provide a full-day enrichment program during the summer as well.
The program marks one of the largest school district-led swim safety efforts in the region, according to the school district.
For several years, the YMCA remained closed to the public after the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. During its closure, the pool fell into disrepair until the district stepped in with funds to complete a massive renovation, including adding new concrete around the pool, resurfacing the pool, and new changing stalls.
Using afterschool state funding, the district decided to invest $1.2 million into renovating the YMCA’s pool as a means to provide swimming lessons for students in the program.
Since the pool is outdoors, and swimming lessons held throughout the full school year, incoming Superintendent Andy McGuire said part of the renovations included heating the pool for students to enjoy during the colder months.
“We thought it was a worthy investment to get this pool back up to speed,” McGuire said.
The state funds the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program, also known as ELO-P, which is considered to be California’s largest investment in afterschool programs for districts statewide. The funding allows students to participate in afterschool and summer programs for free, prioritizing students from low-income families, foster youth and English-language learners.
The district partners with the YMCA and other organizations to provide enriching afterschool programs, like intramural rugby, soccer and dance, and also works with teachers to provide academic intervention opportunities after school as well.
According to McGuire, the district is rebranding its initiative as the “Explorers” program, reflecting a theme of offering diverse opportunities — like swimming — for students to discover their own interests.
McGuire said a few thousand of the district’s 12,000 enrolled students participate in afterschool programs across its campuses.
Future phases of the district’s partnership with the YMCA will include access to nearby outdoor soccer fields, a farm-to-table instructional garden, a teaching kitchen, and outdoor activity zones on the green space between the YMCA’s two main buildings on North Broadway.
Students in the YMCA afterschool program at Conway Elementary — also known as Conway Academy of Expeditionary Learning — were among the first to kick off the swimming program.
Before lessons begin, students learn basic water safety.
Some students already know how to swim when they start, but others do not.
Although it wasn’t fifth grader Roxy De La Cruz’s first time in a pool, she hadn’t learned to swim until joining the program.
Before, she was afraid of the water. Now, after just a week of lessons, she’s confident swimming in the deep end.
“I like swimming because it helps me to get used to it, and making my body more attracted to it,” she said.
She also enjoys the challenge of pushing herself to try something new.
The district hopes the program will inspire students to pursue water sports when they reach high school.
“Who knows what kind of future Olympians we could be creating out here,” McGuire said. “It just becomes part of the school experience here in Escondido.”
For now, the pool will be primarily used by students, but the renovations mark the first step toward reopening it for the wider community.
“There’s definitely a want from the community to get this facility back up and running like it was before, and our investment gets it moving in the right direction,” McGuire said.
