Tag: foss swim school

Rachel Bootsma, Foss Swim School alumna and Olympic gold medalist in the 4×100 meter medley relay, shares some of the tips that helped her take her freestyle form to the next level. [...]Read More...

Why is it so hot in the pool area? It’s one of the questions we hear often from parents and others sitting alongside our pools. The answer is somewhat more complicated than most people would expect, but the short answer is that the heat is necessary for us to deliver ...

There is a famous scene in the 1953 John Wayne movie “Hondo” where he encounters a six-year-old boy fishing. Upon learning the boy can’t swim, The Duke takes it upon himself to remedy the situation in the most direct way possible—throwing the boy into the water. Today we know throwing ...

When Jon and Susan Foss founded Foss Swim School in 1993, they started a program that was unlike any other in the U.S. at the time. In the years that followed, it was not yet clear that it would be a sustainable business as it grew to multiple locations. But ...

For many parents, a core reason to enroll in swim lessons is safety—helping their kids gain enough swimming skill to increase their chances of getting to safety and safely exiting the water in an emergency. At Foss Swim School we agree wholeheartedly. That’s why our program is designed to produce ...

Anaiz Cernas Site Director Libertyville, IL How long have you worked for FOSS? I’ve worked at FOSS for just over 5 years. I started in 2012 as an instructor, then a deck assistant, a shift coordinator, and most recently site director of the Libertyville location. What is your favorite part ...

Our success teaching hundreds of thousands of kids to swim over the past 25 years has earned our weekly swim classes many devoted families, but did you know that there are more ways to swim with FOSS that go beyond classes? Our progress-builder camps, skill clinics, family swims, and fun ...

When Patricia decided to set a goal of finishing a sprint triathlon (half mile swim, 20-kilometer bike, 5-kilometer run), she had one overriding question: “Do I really know how to swim?” By no means a newcomer to the water—the Minnesota native had grown up playing in lakes, had taken basic ...

At Foss Swim School, we like to think of goggles as a milestone for children who have developed a comfort with water and mastered the first few skills of water acclimation. Here’s what we look for before recommending goggles for a child. If you’re not sure, ask us—our instructors can ...

“One swallow does not a summer make,” Aristotle said, reminding people that seeing one migrating bird isn’t evidence that the seasons have changed. At Foss Swim School, we take a similar view—you can’t really show mastery of any of our swim skills just by doing it once. Parents sometimes ask ...

Kris Swanson Office Manager St. Louis Park, MN How long have you worked for FOSS? I have worked with FOSS for 12 years. I first came here as a parent in 2003 when my daughter began swimming lessons, then started working as part-time office staff. I became an office manager ...

Casey Fogerty Director of Field Operations, Missouri Region How long have you worked for FOSS? I’ve been with FOSS since June 2012, a month after graduating from Taylor University and a month before I got married. What is your favorite part of working for FOSS?  Enriching people’s lives and having ...

Thank you to all our swimmers and families for celebrating our 25th anniversary with us! We’ve enjoyed hearing what Foss Swim School has meant to you, and we hope we showed you how much you mean to us every day. We especially love hearing right from our swimmers. As we ...

Learning to swim is good for kids in a lot of ways – for safety, of course, for physical health, and even for cognitive development. But did you know that, as a structured activity, swim school and swim teams also can help kids succeed socially? Swimming can be competitive or ...

You see the signs whenever you come into a Foss Swim School facility—no glass. We understand some of our customers strongly prefer using glass bottles, but there’s a good reason for this policy and why we enforce it so strongly. People naturally understand the risk of broken glass, but some ...