If your children love something you hate.....

[Janeway]

My children love going to the local public pool. I think the local public pool is awful. I was so happy to have a break from it last year. Now, this year, we started back yesterday. It was as I remember. The music was blaring very loud. The overcrowding issue was not present yet this year. But the music was so loud that we could not talk to each other at all. At best, we could scream and even then, repeat ourselves. I stupidly put the kids in swim lessons and there are 6-8 kids in each class, and I am talking level 1 and 2. And the instruction is so inconsistent. I am lucky my younger children got great instructors. But the level 1 class was awful while the instructors were just downright cruel.  I saw a parent take his child out and leave. I never want to go back but we have 6 more lessons. I stupidly put them in lessons there because so many places are closed still or closed permanently. Once these lessons are done, we will not be going back.

[Bambam]

A. Go talk to the person in charge and ask for the volume to be lowered. 
B. Go talk to the manager of the cruel instructor, explain what cruel instructor did, say it must be corrected or you will pull all your kids and ask for your money back.  And stick to it. Do not allow your kids to be mistreated. Walk. And post reviews about your negative (or hopefully positive) experience. 
C. Consider looking locally for some private instruction. We have several PS teachers who teach swimming in their back yard pools during the summer. 
D. Would a backyard pool be feasible for your house? (so many considerations here)

[Alicia64]

2 minutes ago, Bambam said:

A. Go talk to the person in charge and ask for the volume to be lowered. 
B. Go talk to the manager of the cruel instructor, explain what cruel instructor did, say it must be corrected or you will pull all your kids and ask for your money back.  And stick to it. Do not allow your kids to be mistreated. Walk. And post reviews about your negative (or hopefully positive) experience. 
C. Consider looking locally for some private instruction. We have several PS teachers who teach swimming in their back yard pools during the summer. 
D. Would a backyard pool be feasible for your house? (so many considerations here)

I'm totally with Bambam. Definitely A, B and C.

I'm sorry, that sounds awful. The music volume would drive me crazy. Twice I had to tell the movie theater to turn their volume down. It was ridiculous..

[JustEm]

Are there other pools to consider? In our area community pools you buy a membership to are all over the place. I have never experienced a public pool where the music was blasting so loud you couldn't have a normal conversation.  I'd have a very hard time spending any amount of time there on a regular basis.

[LucyStoner]

Is there a different pool you could access?  Either another public pool, a club pool or a private pool?  My son take his swim lessons at a public pool but it’s pretty quiet.  No music.  The different public pools here all have a different atmosphere in terms of noise and how they are handling social distancing.  

[Janeway]

1 hour ago, Bambam said:

A. Go talk to the person in charge and ask for the volume to be lowered. 
B. Go talk to the manager of the cruel instructor, explain what cruel instructor did, say it must be corrected or you will pull all your kids and ask for your money back.  And stick to it. Do not allow your kids to be mistreated. Walk. And post reviews about your negative (or hopefully positive) experience. 
C. Consider looking locally for some private instruction. We have several PS teachers who teach swimming in their back yard pools during the summer. 
D. Would a backyard pool be feasible for your house? (so many considerations here)

A...it is a bunch of teens left in charge. They don't care.

B I did complain and, well, again..teens in charge, they don't care.

C .... I am going to suck it up and pay for private instruction after this

D...yes....but I didn't really want one. 

In the past, we just go to the next town over, but this year, no lessons, nothing. Maybe I should look in to a backyard pool. But they are so costly and not used half the year.  I know what I need to do. It just sucks. I need to stand up to the kids. Tell them we can swim when we go to a place further away, but not the public pool close to our house. 

Edited June 9, 2021 by Janeway

[Janeway]

1 hour ago, Bambam said:

A. Go talk to the person in charge and ask for the volume to be lowered. 
B. Go talk to the manager of the cruel instructor, explain what cruel instructor did, say it must be corrected or you will pull all your kids and ask for your money back.  And stick to it. Do not allow your kids to be mistreated. Walk. And post reviews about your negative (or hopefully positive) experience. 
C. Consider looking locally for some private instruction. We have several PS teachers who teach swimming in their back yard pools during the summer. 
D. Would a backyard pool be feasible for your house? (so many considerations here)

I need to change my answer to D...we need to move.

[Bambam]

3 minutes ago, Janeway said:

A...it is a bunch of teens left in charge. They don't care.

B I did complain and, well, again..teens in charge, they don't care.

C .... I am going to suck it up and pay for private instruction after this

D...yes....but I didn't really want one. 

In the past, we just go to the next town over, but this year, no lessons, nothing. Maybe I should look in to a backyard pool. But they are so costly and not used half the year. 

Those teens have a manager somewhere. This manager needs to understand the volume of the music and the cruel nature of the instructors. 
Do not let your children be mistreated by these teens. Protect your children. Stand up for them. If you are not going to track down a manager and talk with him, I would not return. If the money is an issue for you, call up and demand a refund, otherwise, just walk away. 

What other outside activities might your children enjoy besides swimming/pool? I have no idea of your kids ages, but my kids loved just running through a sprinkler when they were little. All the neighbor kids did too. 

[Janeway]

1 minute ago, Bambam said:

Those teens have a manager somewhere. This manager needs to understand the volume of the music and the cruel nature of the instructors. 
Do not let your children be mistreated by these teens. Protect your children. Stand up for them. If you are not going to track down a manager and talk with him, I would not return. If the money is an issue for you, call up and demand a refund, otherwise, just walk away. 

What other outside activities might your children enjoy besides swimming/pool? I have no idea of your kids ages, but my kids loved just running through a sprinkler when they were little. All the neighbor kids did too. 

I did put in a call with a higher up with the town...I will follow up in the morning too. 

[RootAnn]

6-8 kids with one instructor? Because here, level 1 & 2 lessons have 15-20 kids each. But, there are usually 2-3 instructors. Red Cross lessons should have a recommended number of students per instructor.

[*****]

As a former lifeguard, I would think the loud music would be a safety hazard. If someone in the pool were calling for help, they would not be heard maybe even by someone who was close. I have never been to a pool with loud music.

When you talk to the manager, mention this. In the future, if someone drowns, this could add to the paper trail of inadequate safety measures. The young workers probably keep it loud to deter parents from bringing their kids, so they have less to watch.😉

If the manager doesn't do anything, maybe time to visit social media with a candid review...

[stripe]

Never been to a pool with music of any kind playing during lessons or normal open swimming, and my kids have gone to several indoor pools and several other outdoor pools. I have bad memories of a cruel swim teacher when I was young, so I would tend towards taking my kids out. I stopped taking my kids to Tae Kwon Do lessons after the teacher started making fun of one of my kids, and was nasty to some others during class, but I stupidly didn’t complain.

 

ETA Most of my kids’ swim classes have been run by teens or college students, and they have behaved appropriately. I think teens can and do act appropriately so I don’t think that is a valid reason to be loud or allow inappropriate behavior. In other words, I totally agree with you.

Edited June 9, 2021 by stripe

[RootAnn]

3 hours ago, stripe said:

Never been to a pool with music of any kind playing during lessons or normal open swimming, and my kids have gone to several indoor pools and several other outdoor pools.

Except for indoor hotel pools or pools at private clubs (only been to 1 of the latter), all public & private outdoor pools I've been to played music. You can hear everyone talk over the music. The kids' squealing is usually what drowns out the music.

[stripe]

Well there you are! I guess my town must not like music! Certainly not during lessons.

[*****]

Especially not during lessons!  Never heard of that. As an instructor, that would have driven me crazy, especially the loud music.  Some kids have a real hesitancy with water and loud music really wouldn't help! 

[Janeway]

17 hours ago, ***** said:

As a former lifeguard, I would think the loud music would be a safety hazard. If someone in the pool were calling for help, they would not be heard maybe even by someone who was close. I have never been to a pool with loud music.

When you talk to the manager, mention this. In the future, if someone drowns, this could add to the paper trail of inadequate safety measures. The young workers probably keep it loud to deter parents from bringing their kids, so they have less to watch.😉

If the manager doesn't do anything, maybe time to visit social media with a candid review...

Others have complained on social media. I said something a few years ago. It is just sort of a dumb move on my behalf (the fact that I gave them yet another chance). I knew how bad the pool is and I went for it anyway because it has been near two years. I did follow up by calling the town. But, when I spoke to them, the person who is over the person who is over the pool (the young man who was such a jerk yesterday over the incident) is gone through next week. Who works in a job where they are over the public pool and goes out of town the first weeks the pool is open? What-ev-er. It is a situation where I knew better but thought maybe, now that some time has passed, maybe it has gotten better. Nope. It is still the unsafe stupid place it was years ago. Unfortunately, the public pool the next town over (where I way prefer) has a life guard shortage and is not open now. They say they are trying to open and will as soon as they get more lifeguards.

Edited June 9, 2021 by Janeway

[Janeway]

1 hour ago, ***** said:

Especially not during lessons!  Never heard of that. As an instructor, that would have driven me crazy, especially the loud music.  Some kids have a real hesitancy with water and loud music really wouldn't help! 

The "incident" yesterday was a swim instructor..young adult man who was quite big (not fat, just big and strong) holding a little girl who looked like she was 3 yrs old, when her head pinned against his chest, on her back, to try to force her to swim on her back, while she screamed and cried and twisted trying to get out. This went on for some time and I finally complained. This went on for over 5 minutes before I complained and at one point, he stopped and spoke to the other teacher and then went right back to doing it. The poor little girl begged and pleaded and screamed so loud that she could even be heard over the loud music. Last night, at bedtime, my own daughter told me she was upset about the little girl and thought the little girl was hurt. My daughter never saw me complain so she did not simply hear it from me. It makes no sense that the man kept holding her down like that, in the water, on her back and forced her to stay in that position like that and it went on for so long. Then when I complained, it met deaf ears until I insisted on speaking to the manager. The manager is a man about 25 yrs old who used to be a life guard there. He was clearly angry with me for saying anything but did go over the looked for the parent of the child. The parent had left so the parent never saw what happened. But then the manager approached me later and told me he wanted me to sign an "incident report" and he said I could not write on it, I could only sign it. And he handed it to me and it says "parent was at lessons with her child and she did not like how an instructor in a different class was teaching." And he demanded I sign it. I refused. I told him I would only sign it if I wrote down what happened. He had me write on the back, so I did and signed. But then he flipped it back over and wanted me to sign the front where he had written his version. I said fine, but before I signed, I added what happened on the front and then signed. He was angry and walked off.

I don't even want to go back there today. I should have never given this place another chance. It is so icky!

[*****]

That is unheard of.  What kind of organization is this, just a community pool or?  Like if it were community education, you would have people to complain to.  I would definitely be looking for the next step of who to complain to.  I probably would have been too distressed too, watching this to even think of recording it on my phone. I wonder if anyone else did?   The only reason I would take my child back to that class was to have my phone ready to gain further evidence of wrongdoing, otherwise, it would be wise to stay away. 

The first step in teaching children how to swim is to gain their trust. Water causes so much fear.  I always do it by telling them what we are going to do. If at all hesitant on their behalf, then you go in baby steps and only for the count of 1 or 2, then make  a big deal out of their accomplishment (they always think that is great!). Then move in baby steps from there. These people are not properly trained.  Do they claim to be Red Cross classes?  If so, maybe that would be who you complain to, because the ARC would not want to be associated with that. Maybe others here have ideas of the next step?  Better Business Bureau?  Maybe even the news?  But yeah, if you get some recordings, and I would do it discreetly because that manager will be watching you...