Michelle Gipe, the district’s aquatics director, told the Elkhart Community Schools board on Nov. 11 that the district’s Aquatic Center runs a broad set of programs intended to reduce drownings, increase competitiveness and supply local lifeguards.

Gipe said the fourth‑grade water‑safety program brings all elementary fourth graders to the Aquatic Center for eight 45‑minute lessons each year, serving roughly 800 students. “When they start, we have about 50% of our students that could even make it 5 meters,” she said; by the end of the eight‑day cycle she reported about 87% could return to the side if they fell in the water and roughly 56% could swim a full pool length — a notable gain in basic survival and swim skills.

Beyond the school‑day lessons, Gipe described high‑school swim credit options, intramural programs for grades 4–8, middle‑school competitive teams and a high‑school swim and dive team of about 60 students. She said lifeguarding courses taught by Mr. Urlacher typically enroll 10–20 students per class and produce about 30–40 certified lifeguards annually; the district also uses student interns (four currently) to help staff school programming.

Gipe gave a facility‑usage breakdown for a typical school day: high‑school swimming accounts for about 36% of reserved pool space, intramural/middle‑school programs about 14.4%, lifeguarding 6%, freshman PE about 19%, fourth‑grade water safety about 5%, diving 5% and Elkhart United club use about 13%.

On safety technology, a board member asked whether the district had installed an automated drown‑detection system. Gipe said Beacon reviewed camera‑based detection systems but rejected them because of frequent false alarms; Beacon instead placed underwater cameras at lifeguard stands so lifeguards can scan pool bottoms on monitors without relying on automatic alerts.

Gipe traced the program’s origin to two local student drowning deaths in 2017 and framed prevention as the primary goal of the district’s investments. She recommended expanding internships, offering more lifeguard training in summer, and launching an “Operation Water Safety” day to train parents and children together.

The presentation closed after a short board Q&A and applause; no formal action was required.