What's at stake?
Many families still aren’t taking advantage of the lessons, despite the availability.
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Top Takeaways
- Fresno Unified has expanded access to free swim lessons, getting thousands of students in the water this summer.
- Many families still aren’t taking advantage of the lessons, despite the availability.
- Some families face fear, and lessons don’t necessarily mean children are water safe.
Soledad Macias never learned to swim. Her family couldn’t afford lessons, and even now, as a mother of five, she didn’t feel safe around water. She didn’t want that for her children.
“I always see this tragic news when kids drown,” Macias said. “I’m like ‘No, I want my kids to know how to swim.’ ”
Macias’ children, including her 4- and 7-year old daughters, didn’t like getting their faces wet at first. After two weeks of lessons offered by the Fresno Unified School District, both girls grew comfortable in the pool and were able to open their eyes underwater and glide across the surface with the help of a kickboard. By the last week of July, Macias’ daughters could float in the pool for nearly a minute. “Fifty,” one of the girls announced, counting the seconds as Macias watched their excitement.
Through free swimming lessons provided by Fresno Unified, Macias’ children have gained confidence in the water and are developing a skill she never had the opportunity to learn.
The district has spent years expanding access to these swim lessons, including having thousands of spots available this summer. But getting kids into the pool is only the first step. For some families, fear, past experiences and misconceptions about water safety can remain barriers — even when lessons are free and available.
“Accessibility is not the root cause,” said Jennifer Lopez, a water safety advocate who founded a program to improve access to swimming lessons across Fresno. “Fresno Unified has made it accessible. It’s more nuanced than that.”
Recognizing that, district leaders are considering how to increase awareness and education about water safety in order to encourage more student participation.
“School districts are particularly well positioned to make a lasting impact because of our ability to reach children across neighborhoods, backgrounds and income levels, including students who might otherwise never have access to formal swimming instruction or water safety education,” said Ben Drati, the district’s deputy superintendent.
Access improved, but did awareness?
A Fresno Unified student practices swimming techniques during a July 30, 2026, lesson. Credit: Lasherica Thornton/ EdSourceDrowning is the second-leading cause of unintentional death for children ages 5 to14, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The risk is reflected in Fresno Unified’s own data. In a May 2025 district survey shared with EdSource, 14% of parents responded that their child had experienced a near-drowning or water-related scare. In some parts of the district, particularly in historically redlined areas, more than 20% of families reported having a drowning incident.
Recognizing that swim lessons can teach children potentially lifesaving water safety skills, Fresno Unified began partnering with the city of Fresno in 2023 to offer free swim lessons. That summer, just 200 students signed up.
Since then, the district has expanded its partnerships and provided more lessons across the city over several weeks, giving families greater flexibility to participate, said Connie Cha, Fresno Unified’s expanded learning director. About 3,100 students participated this summer.
Fresno Unified School District students, on an underwater “island,” ready themselves for their turn with the swim instructor at Break the Barriers on July 29, 2026. Credit: Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource A swim instructor with Break the Barriers high fives a Fresno Unified School District student during a lesson on July 29, 2026. Credit: Lasherica Thornton/ EdSourceThe lessons are designed to help students build confidence and teach them water safety, Cha said.
“They learn these skills, and they can utilize it to be safer in and around water,” she said. “That is what we, as a district, intended to do when we embarked on this partnership to provide more access across our district to our students and families.”
But completing swim lessons does not necessarily mean a child is water safe, said Lopez, the water safety advocate.
Using the Navy’s water safe criteria, Lopez defines water safety as being able to jump in the pool, float on one’s back or tread water for 60 seconds, swim across the pool and get out of the water.
According to the district’s 2025 survey, more than 80% of students in some parts of the district reported that they could not perform those skills. Across the district, 11% of surveyed parents said their children can swim, but not well enough to meet the definition of “water safe.”
“A kid drowned this year,” Lopez said. “Being water safe is critical.”
Learning to swim and be water safe
“Float on your back like this,” a Break the Barriers swim instructor says as she models what Fresno Unified students should be doing on July 29, 2026.Credit: Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource
During the last week of swim classes at Break the Barriers in July, an instructor guided a cohort of students on how to keep their legs extended and kick their feet as they went.
“I want to see you practice floating on your back,” another instructor told a group of students. As they came down a water slide and splashed into the deep end of the pool, students, whether knowingly or not, worked on what to do when submerged in the water.
At the city-run lessons, students are also grouped by skill level, including “tadpoles” who are uncomfortable getting in the water, “sharks” who can swim in the pool’s deep end, and “dolphins” who can dive and swim freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke in multiple laps across the pool.
Learning those skills may take more than one week of classes, though. Many students participated in multiple sessions this summer.
Still, 900 of 4,000 available spots remained unfilled.
Cha said many families are fearful.
“More often than not, they have a personal story about someone they may know or someone that they’ve heard of who had a traumatic experience … due to a water-related accident,” she said.
In the program’s early years, parents sometimes came to lessons simply to observe, which helped ease their concerns. This year, 61% of the 3,000-plus participants, or more than 1,800 students, took lessons for the first time, including 10-year-old Elias.
Afraid of the water, his mother, Alejandra Benitez, is another Fresno Unified parent who never learned to swim and feared her son would drown.
“I wanted him to know (how to swim),” Benitez said.
After three weeks of lessons, Elias can now jump into the deep end and start swimming — a stark contrast to his earlier inability to leave the shallow waters.
Looking beyond accessibility
For some families, overcoming the fear of swimming will take much more than accessibility.
Lopez said some families carry generational trauma, particularly in Black communities, where generations have experienced segregated pools, racism and drownings. Those experiences can contribute to families avoiding water or limiting their children’s exposure to it.
“It needs to be hit head-on,” Lopez said. “It needs to be acknowledged so that people can start to feel comfortable to try.”
She worked with the district in 2025 to create Frequently Asked Questions about swim lessons for children in special education and family guides on water safety, so the conversation could start at home — methods that may also bridge the comfort level for other families.
Addressing those barriers requires a multitiered approach, Lopez said: educating families about water safety, acknowledging traumatic experiences and continuing to provide opportunities for students to gain water safety skills.
Fresno Unified officials this year are evaluating how to expand water safety education beyond its summer lessons.
For Macias, the lessons have already changed what water means to her family. She’s no longer anxious every time her kids are close to water. Her daughters are now comfortable enough in the water to learn, while two of her sons are still mastering the techniques of swimming. Her oldest 9-year-old son, after two years of summer lessons, can swim and is considered water safe.
Classified as a “shark,” he practiced diving into the deepest waters in July and swam from the middle of the pool to its perimeter.
“I feel very proud of them — very happy,” she said. “I feel more safe when they’re around water.”
