DEEP LESSON

Swim for Life teaches kids valuable skills

FOR KIDS USED to navigating subways and sidewalks, the deep end of a swimming pool can be a scary place.

That’s why Diana Rodriguez is there to help the city’s landbound second-graders get their feet wet.

The Parks Department’s Swim for Life program opened for its seventh year last week, the first of three 10-week school year sessions intended to safely show inner-city kids their way around a pool.

The program is free to the kids, but costs Parks $100 per kid to run.

“It’s important because it’s a life-long skill,” said Rodriguez, 23, after opening day at the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center in the West Village. “It helps you with everything — tackle certain fears. You never know when you’re going to need that life skill.”

Fellow instructor Gennadiy Zobenko, 33, said the program was launched in 2011 to lower “the disproportionate amount of drowning for inner city kids.”

Statistics show drowning is the second-leading cause of accidental injury-related childhood death. And the USA Swimming Foundation reports 64% of black children possess little to no swimming skills.

Among Hispanic number stands at 45%.

Karina Rivera, a 7-year-old student at Public School 123, is among 2,000 second-graders participating in the program. She came down with her classmates from W. 140th St. to the facility just north of Houston St. kids, the

“It was really fun,” said Rivera after the hour-long lesson. “We learned how to backstroke.”

The students could barely contain their day-one delight as they tiptoed down the ladder and into the pool Tuesday — their giggles and shrieks echoing off the walls.

As the instructors began their teaching, the kids splashed in the water, eager to impress the adults with their underwater bubbleblowing skills.

Rodriguez said many of the kids in the Parks Department’s Swim for Life program are reticent to take a dip — at first.

“I’ve had a whole bunch, they’ll be clinging to the (pool) wall,” recalled Rodriguez. “And then by the (last) session, they already know the beginning into freestyle. It takes time. It just depends on how quickly they learn.”

The other two sessions are set for January-March and AprilJune of next year, with 14 pools around the city diving in to help.

Students attend one hourlong class each week for 10 weeks. PS 123 is sending three groups down for the October-December classes.

The swim program has grown, but still only reaches fewer than 10% of the city’s 70,000 second graders each year. The Parks Department hopes to expand it to benefit more youngsters

Although most of the participants are entering an indoor pool for the first time, the Parks Department reports 83% of the kids are proficient in their swimming skills after their 10 classes.

“They learn how to safely navigate,” said Zobenko. “What is safe behavior, what is not safe behavior, what to do in case of an emergency.”