The following are various emails that were sent to me on my request for information on swim classes for young kids around our neighborhood. I have left all the original names out simply because the emails were sent to me, and not sure if they were intended to be posted.

- PA YMCA 
- City of MV swimming (Rengstorff or Eagle Park) 
- LAMVAC swim (held at Eagle Park, Rengstorff or Foothill College) 
- one private lesson from a DAC (name?) swim school instructor (Cupertino)

Of these, I found the City of MV the most affordable but the quality of instruction to be mediocre to poor. I stopped using them after a few tries but am sure there are others who have had better success than us.

PA YMCA has clean, indoor facilities with a heated pool, which, during cold weather, is a real plus. There are showering facilities, too. There is a high turnover w/ instructors but you can find good teachers within the lot. It's good if you can keep an eye out for your child. I looked up once and in a split second, my child was drowning while the instructor turned her back to help another child.

DAC, Cupertino 
Some people swear by this swim school. It's just a little out of the way for me.

The best value and most conscientious swim instruction, imho, is w/ LAMVAC (Los Altos Mountain View.... sorry I can't recall the exact name). For a flat fee, your child can have swim lessons up to 4x a week, which is much preferable to having lessons 1-2x a week. I've had consistently high quality instruction from young, energetic instructors who are usually master swimmers who were part of the LAMVAC swim team. This swim program feeds into their swim team, so 
they have a vested interested in training the young swimmers properly.

I took my kids to Tonnie Rogers in Palo Alto over by Loma Verde school. She has a pool in her backyard which is enclosed and kept at a warm temperature. She is an excellent instructor and gives lessons to a maximum of 4 children at a time. Her number is 494-0240 for days she teaches or more info in general.

My seven year old goes to Sutton Swim School in Cupertino, just behind the Target on Stevens Creek and not too far away. It is an indoor heated pool and a half-hour group lesson with up to three other kids is about $16 a lesson.

She has done really well there and as they only do swimming – nothing else – they are great with teaching kids. She screamed and cried the first time she went and they treated her so well and got her in the water. We had tried to get her lessons at least two other times in the last two years and had to give up because she was so scared and the previous instructors didn’t know how to handle it.

I highly recommend it!

As far as the drive, as long as you schedule your class in the early afternoon, it isn’t bad. The later evening lessons are the killers for making it home without traffic.

You might want to check out Betty Wright Swim Center @ CAR, address 3864 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Phone 650-494-1480. It's an indoor heated swimming pool. I brought my in law for his post-stroke swimming lesson, but I was referred by a neighbor who brought her 4 year old daughter for swimming lesson.

A lot of people go to CAR. http://www.c-a-r.org/swim.html. It's very close, and "real" swimmers I know take their young kids there.

I've heard great things about Carol Macpherson's classes (http://www.c-mac.us/) but they are summer only.

I've had bad experiences with CAR. I did not feel that the instructors were geared toward young kids and they were not consistent with the instructor. We now take our 6 year old boy to Sutton Swim school and are very pleased with them. Sutton is very good.