(waves crashing) - Dorian.

From early on, I made sure that Dorian was comfortable in the water.

We spent a lot of time at the beach.

But for some parents that might not be experienced swimmers, that could be a little bit harder.

Swim lessons cost money and wealthier kids just have more access to pools.

But everyone is not that lucky.

And, you know, a lot of neighborhoods don't even have pools and the city pools aren't open all the time.

Plus a lot of families can't afford 100 to $200 for swimming lessons and then it gets more expensive if you're trying to be on the swim team or just, you know, advanced swimming.

(water bubbling) - [Instructor] All right.

Remember, wait till I say go.

- [Host] In this series, we've been exploring the pluses and minuses of team as well as individual sports as Dorian starts on his sports journey.

In particular, we've been talking about how to make sports as safe as possible for kids.

But just like so many other things, safety could depend on the resources.

From football, soccer, to baseball, and just playing outside, families with more money means kids have better equipment, better experienced coach, and better parks and fields.

- But there's a difference between having a park and having a good park that has facilities, that has restrooms, that has water, that has places where kids can play team sports, that has tennis courts.

- And sports costs money.

From equipment to travel to camps to registration, it starts to add up.

The average family pays about $900 a year for one child to play one sport.

And families from the wealthier households spend up to four times more than the low income families.

- You'll see the facilities in our communities are just, the fences are falling down, the fields have divots, you know, the grass is either brown or there's none there.

So the fields are in total disarray.

So the parents, they don't want to come and, you know, pay 200, 300, even sometimes $400 in a league where the field is unsafe and the city, it's a city park and the city's not taking care of those fields.

It does hurt us in the sense that now we struggle because that team over there, the coaches can buy that kids cleats or, you know, the kind of cleats that they want or they have three uniforms or, you know, something like that.

- [Host] In soccer, baseball or basketball, wealthier families are more likely to put their children in club teams, which have better paid coaches.

- The lack of quality coaches a lot of these organizations have.

And I don't blame necessarily the organizations for having a lack of quality coaches because a lot of these organizations don't have the funding to have quality coaches with quality training.

I think travel ball is huge on killing these types of parks.

Majority of the kids that play travel ball come from households that can afford it, right?

(water bubbling) - [Host] When you go from the park to the pool, the stakes are even higher.

The disparities can mean the difference between life and death.

Drowning is the number one cause of death for all children under four.

Black children from five to nine are almost three times more likely to die in swimming pools than white children.

While Black children ages 10 and above are almost four times as likely.

And there are similar disparities for Asian, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanic children.

- It's gonna go back in time.

Back to segregation times when Black Americans did not have access to swimming pools.

And there was a huge fear factor that trickled down from generation to generation.

Swimming is not culturally prioritized in every household.

If you think about it, if your parents never learned how to swim, if your grandparents never learned how to swim, it's likely that they're not gonna take their kids to the pool to learn how to swim either.

So we need to change that.

We need to introduce more kids to the pool because we need to make sure they're safe when they get out into the ocean where lots of drownings are happening and drowning is happening everywhere.

- [Host] There are efforts in San Diego to break that cycle.

- The Jackie Robinson Family YMCA Pool, again, very intentionally was designed to create a space where families feel safe to come, have their children learn to swim and become water safe.

The challenge is, of course, is always getting the word out to the community, making sure that it's known that the YMCA provides scholarships and we're gonna help provide funding.

We don't want that perception to be that the Y is inaccessible or unaffordable for a family that might need that.

- [Host] However, the disparities are persistent.

Unlike wealthier families who might be able to afford private swim lessons, the families at the Jackie Robinson Y are on a long wait list.

- There is a shortage in staff, lifeguards, swim instructors.

We're always kind of, we're trying to build that base, bring people in to help.

And because of that we've had some challenges with wait lists for swimming lessons, being able to accommodate those needs.

So, you know, I tell families, be patient.

Get on that wait list.

Make it known that you're wanting to get into those swimming lessons and that we're gonna do everything we can to accommodate every family.

- [Host] The city of San Diego is working towards solutions.

One is to certify people in the community as lifeguards.

Another is literally to bring the pools to neighborhoods who don't have them.

- We allow people to come in for free to train and learn the prerequisites to become a lifeguard.

And we train and certify you on the job.

And we provide full-time benefited positions.

So we are doing a lot.

We need to do more, but we're working really hard to make sure that these jobs are accessible to everyone and that these swim lessons are accessible to everyone as well.

One of the things that we do, we have a portable pool program, which is really cool.

We have pools that are about 15 by 20 feet that we transport to communities where they may not have pools.

- [Host] Whether in a pool or at a park, it takes work from the people in the community as well as their advocates to help turn things around.

- It's not inevitable that low income neighborhoods are gonna be poorly served with parks.

It's up to the city and city by city 'cause that's who manages parks.

And so we thought, this is good news.

There are solutions out there at the policy level that work.

And so we don't have to sit around and wait for San Diego or Chula Vista or wherever to come up with that policy.

We as citizens can request, demand, you know, advocate for every neighborhood needs to have a good quality park.

And we need a policy so that we can hold you accountable to that.