Your child deserves the very best, and by choosing SwimKids Swim School, you can be confident they’ll get it.
And now, we’re proud to share that Little Flippers is now part of the Emler Swim School family, a national family of more than 15 trusted swim school brands. This partnership brings together over 400 years of combined teaching experience and the expertise from more than 100 million lessons taught across the country.
While our network has grown, the heart of your lessons hasn’t changed. You’ll still see the same caring instructors you know, trust and love.
You will, however, notice the instructors’ adoption of SwimSure™, the gold standard in swim lesson curriculum that unites the strongest, most proven practices in safe swim education with play- and milestone-based learning.
Designed to help every swimmer grow stronger, safer, and more confident in the water, SwimSure™ is a teaching philosophy rooted in safety, progress, confidence, and care. It’s the gold standard of swim instruction that ensures every lesson is consistent, child-centered, and filled with a splash of love.
Dave Tonnesen, who founded SwimKids with his wife Cindy, isn’t just the leader of our swim programs – he is the very first SwimKid!
After Dave’s mother nearly drowned due to a lack of swimming ability and confidence, she vowed that her children would learn swimming and water safety from an early age. This meant that Dave fell in love with the water when he was young, and developed a lifelong interest in the sport of swimming.
Dave became an outstanding swimmer, competing first as a youth in local summer swim teams in NOVA and later as a collegiate athlete at Virginia Tech. During his time at Virginia Tech, Dave suffered a career-ending injury. The injury, however, had a silver lining – it led him to switch gears from swimming himself to coaching young athletes – a passion that would shape the rest of his life. A passion that continues today.
While working as a professional full-time swim coach in the early 90’s, Dave met Cindy, and it was love at first pool. No, you didn’t read that wrong! Dave actually proposed to Cindy in a pool! Not only that, their engagement party took place at a community pool too. Swimming shaped Dave and Cindy’s lives together. They would soon learn that swimming would become the family business!
SwimKids was founded in 1996 when Cindy and Dave realized it was hard enough to feed a family on a coach’s salary, let alone save for college. The very first SwimKids lesson was taught in the Tonnesen’s backyard pool in 1997. This began what the couple calls the “science project years”. Dave coached full-time and provided lessons on the side, while Cindy dedicated herself to developing a working business model for SwimKids.
Much has changed since the SwimKids’ early days. The administration office is no longer a spare bedroom (we have beautiful world-class facilities instead!), and registrations are no longer managed with a simple word document.
The important parts of the business, however, have remained the same. Cindy and Dave’s dedication to helping every child fall in love with the water has been consistent since day one. SwimKids grew from a backyard dream into a respected local business because of their passion and joy of bringing swim lessons to children just like yours.
Their guiding philosophy and team of coaches have taught over one million swim lessons to families in the community, and brought millions of bright smiles to swimmers’ faces around our pools!
SwimKids now has multiple facilities serving our local communities, but all of our locations have one consistent mission: delivering the highest level of comfort for our swimmers AND parents.
The heart of every SwimKids location are our pools. We’ve carefully engineered every aspect with leading companies in aquatic safety. By filtering our water with UV light instead of harsh chemicals, we ensure our swimmers enjoy crystal clear water that won’t leave their eyes stinging.
We also make our students comfortable with warm water temperatures and pleasantly warm air. If we could sum up the pool environment at SwimKids in one word, it’s tropical!
But this dedication to comfort and safety goes beyond our water. SwimKids constantly looks for innovations in swim technology to aid our students. For example, our instructors use special docks which enhance baby swim lessons.
Our changing rooms are also family friendly, providing the space you need to help your child prepare for swim class while managing their brothers and sisters at the same time. We have had enough twins join the SwimKids family to understand the importance of ample space in our changing rooms!
Much of our facilities work focuses on the students in the pool, but they are only part of the equation. We also emphasize the comfort of our swimmer’s parents and siblings. Every SwimKids facility has a temperature-controlled viewing area with excellent visibility of the entire pool area.
We believe our students should feel comfortable in the pool and their parents should be comfortable watching them. Our viewing areas includes plenty of cozy furniture appropriately spaced to accommodate families large and small, not to mention strollers and diaper bags.
We’ve done some extensive work and testing to bring SwimKids families a fun and rewarding experience. But don’t take our word for it. Have a look at what it’s like to experience life and swimming at SwimKids.
Why Little Flippers Swim School – Building Confident Swimmers Since 1975
For 50 years, Little Flippers Swim School has been the trusted choice for families who want their children to learn water safety and swimming with confidence. With more than 100 million lessons taught, 15,000+ 5-star parent reviews, and a team backed by over 400 years of combined expertise, we deliver proven results families can count on.
Our proprietary SwimSure™ curriculum was designed to help every child succeed step by step, with 11 progressive levels that build skills from the very first splash to advanced stroke techniques. Taught by highly trained instructors, SwimSure™ combines safety, confidence, and fun so kids not only learn to swim but truly love the water.
With 30+ locations and a commitment to measurable progress, we guarantee that your child will achieve milestone skills, move up through the levels, and gain life-saving abilities that last a lifetime.
