OPINION:
This week alone, a 5-year-old drowned in the Anacostia River in Washington, a 3-year-old drowned at a home in Potomac, Maryland, and a 15-year-old drowned in upstate New York. Nearly 900 children drown in America every year, and most states are doing little about it.
A few states, including my home state of New York, have passed what are collectively known as “Every Child a Swimmer” laws. The core requirement is the same: Schools must give parents a list of local swim resources, tucked into a school enrollment packet or sent to an email inbox.
We know where those forms end up: the junk drawer or the spam folder.
Louisiana mandated classroom water safety instruction in every public school in 2022. We need the other 49 states to do the same.
A pamphlet requires a parent or guardian to act. Mandatory water safety education in the classroom does not. School is the one place we can guarantee the children will be.
Swim lessons are the gold standard, but mandatory lessons aren’t coming anytime soon. The obstacles are too many: liability waivers, transportation, instructors and lack of facilities.
Segregation left Black communities cut off from public pools for generations, and that lasting impact didn’t disappear when the laws changed. Today, 64% of Black children and 45% of Hispanic children have little or no swimming ability. A pamphlet was never going to be enough.
So let’s at least educate. Water safety instruction gets the information to every student, even the ones who may never get a swim lesson. The curriculum can grow with the student: basic warnings for young children, rip currents and hydraulics for high school students.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s drowning prevention research unit was eliminated in August 2025. That makes state-level action more urgent, not less.
We already have the infrastructure to do much better. We have schools. We have teachers. We have a captive audience of every child in America. It’s time we use them all.
Founder, Own Your Float
Please read our comment policy before commenting.