Good grades earn swims

By Jennifer L. Johnson
news@onlineathens.com

Published Saturday, May 29, 2010

The last local students walked out of the schoolhouse doors this week, but they shouldn't put away their report cards just yet.

Those good grades still can make a big splash at local pools.

The Athens-Clarke Leisure Services Department rewards students in kindergarten through 12th grade for their school-year work by giving them free swimming passes for the community pools opening this weekend.

The pools at Bishop Park and Memorial Park will open for Memorial Day weekend starting today. The East Athens Community Center, Lay Park and Rocksprings Park pools will open Tuesday for the regular summer season.

Admission costs $1 per person, and individual season passes cost $20.

Leisure Services' good grades reward program has been around since 2006, but not many people know about it, according to Myla Neal, administrator of the department's recreation division.

"We don't usually have as many kids as should be taking advantage of this," said Neal, who supervises all the pools' operations. "The most we've ever had taking advantage of the program is about 25 kids a year."

All children who live in Clarke County - whether they go to public or private school - can earn swim cards. Even home-schoolers can get in on the action.

"Because home-schoolers don't have the grades that public school kids have, their parents have to call us so we can work something out," Neal said. "We want all the kids who want to swim to be able to use the swim cards."

Getting a swim card is easy. All kids have to do is bring their final report card to one of the five pools in Clarke County on the first day they want to swim. The pool clerk will review the grades, determine how many free swims kids get and give each student a punch card. Kids swim for free until their swim card is punched out.

Figuring out how grades translate into free swims is a little trickier this summer, because the Clarke County School District changed its grading system in the past year. Instead of A's, B's and C's, some report cards have their equivalent - E's, M's, and P's.

A report card with all A's or E's gets a free summer pool pass with unlimited swims. A report card with all A's and B's (or all E's and M's) is good for 16 free swims, and a report card with all A's, B's and no more than two C's (or P's) is good for eight free swims for the summer.

Kids can bring their report cards at any time during the summer season for their free swim card.

For more information about the report card reward program, visit the website www.accleisureservices.com/aquatics.
Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Saturday, May 29, 2010