Photo Credit: Courtesy of City of Tucson
The city of Tucson’s Homeschool Swim program is held at the Edith Ball Adaptive Aquatics Center, a unique facility that has both an indoor therapy pool and an outdoor recreational pool. The class takes place in the outdoor pool, which features swimming lanes, a specially designed walking channel with a current, a zero-depth beach entry that gradually deepens to a 6-½-foot depth and an area with sprayground water features. The Homeschool Swim program was designed to meet the needs of home-schooled children in the metro-Tucson area. The class was planned not only to fit the physical education requirements of these children, but also to provide social opportunities.
Most municipal pools program their activities for adults and seniors during daytime hours, and do not offer programs for school-aged children during that time. The focus of the program is to provide home-schooled children a convenient and interesting morning class that is easily integrated into the daily routines of home-schooling families and to satisfy physical education hours requirements in the curriculum.
A Growing Demographic
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are 1.1 million home-schooled students in the United States, increasing by 250,000 students since 1999. The Homeschool Swim program allows opportunities for those children to become active, assisting in personal-fitness goals, increased cardiovascular functioning and weight loss. The course is designed to present healthy living and exercise habits to students, using daily stretches and warm-ups to ease students into their workout.