Access to swimming pools is becoming more complex in schools

The drowning of young Blessing Claudevy Moukoko during a physical education class in Montreal in 2018 created a shock wave. Swimming lessons in schools were already far from widespread, and now teachers who used to go to the swimming pool with their students are complaining that they can no longer do so.

Marie-Eve Morasse
Press

Jean-François Lacroix is ​​a physical education teacher in a high school in Montreal. He was planning on going to the pool with one of his groups this year, but even if a lifeguard is present, he is prohibited because he does not have the aquatic certification required for physical education teachers.

This course at the swimming pool was appreciated by the students, he recalls. “There are students who have never been to the swimming pool, others who hug the walls. You have to show them to sit quietly on a bench, then to put their feet in the water, ”observes Mr. Lacroix.

The Montreal School Service Center (CSSDM) indicates that if a physical education teacher has not completed his certification in an aquatic environment, two lifeguards – rather than one – must be present.

“If there is no qualified teacher, there are no lessons in the swimming pool, it is the current directive”, confirms Alain Perron, spokesperson for the CSSDM.

However, some schools do not pay the second lifeguard. Teachers known to Jean-François Lacroix were more cunning than he, he says. They found the funding themselves to pay for the additional lifeguard to be able to go to the pool with their students.

Teacher and lifeguard, two separate tasks

In 2018, Blessing Claudevy Moukoko, 14, was found at the bottom of the swimming pool at Père-Marquette school, where he had gone with his group to take a swimming lesson as part of his education course. physical.

In his report filed nine months later, Coroner Louis Normandin noted that during the tragedy, the substitute physical education teacher had not completed the 90-hour swimming training requested as part of his baccalaureate. In the event that the course is under the responsibility of the physical education teacher, the latter should have completed this training, he recommends.

“Not all teachers have certification in an aquatic environment,” observes Carl Chartier, president of the Federation of physical educators and teachers of Quebec (FEEPEQ), without however being able to quantify how many have it. Some experienced teachers completed this training years ago.

The coroner also advised that the swimming lesson be “under the constant and simultaneous supervision of a teacher. [qui donne le cours] and a lifeguard / supervisor [qui n’a d’autre tâche que de surveiller] “.

The teachers who deplore not being able to go to the swimming pool any more recognize, precisely, that they do not have time to play the role of lifeguard. “Sometimes, you have to go to the locker room to manage students who are in hiding,” illustrates a physical education teacher who refuses to be named for fear of being subjected to reprisals from his employer.

The death of Blessing Claudevy Moukoko may have made school principals “more cautious”, observes Carl Chartier.

At the Lifesaving Society, we believe that it is necessary to put in place safety rules to “avoid a tragedy such as the one we experienced at Père-Marquette”.

The education ministry says it does not rule out “changing the current form of the Swim to Survive program.”

For its part, the Lifesaving Society wants the Swim to Survive program to be given to all elementary schools and to be seen as a school trip.

“Instead of going to La Ronde, the student should take Swimming to survive before spring. It’s totally doable, ”says Hawkins. The pandemic slowed down the deployment of the program, but had it not been for it, 20,000 Quebec students could have completed the training in 2019-2020.

The “machine is on its way” for 2021-2022, notes Mr. Hawkins. Most of the training could take place in the spring.

A swimming pool in a truck

Bring the pool to the kids? This is the original idea of ​​the European association Aqwa Itineris, which has been traveling the roads of Switzerland and France for more than two years with a mobile swimming pool installed in a semi-trailer truck. The eight-meter by two-meter pool is equipped with a movable floor to facilitate learning for young people. This pool is often installed in rural areas, where access to swimming lessons is sometimes complex.