2023 is swimming by! As we near the end of the GOLDEN year, we want to take a moment to reflect on and Celebrate the waves our teams have made this year! After all, Celebrating is one of our Core Values! Our Core Values are the foundation that Goldfish Swim School was built on, and that our team members live by each and every day.

CELEBRATING OUR CORE VALUES

Each year, we award our schools with Core Value Awards, recognizing schools and crews that Go Above and Beyond to represent each of our Core Values day in and day out! We’re so excited to celebrate and honor five schools this year as we award them for their fintastic representation of Goldfish within their local communities.

Golden Experience – Fox Chapel, PA

Goldfish Swim School – Fox Chapel in Pennsylvania is dedicated to providing a Golden Experience to its swimmers and their families, and it shows! They’ve o-FISH-ally become a favorite in their community, in and out of their four walls, making connections with area businesses and finding ways to give back, as well as going above and beyond for their families to ensure each and every person that interacts with Goldfish – Fox Chapel has a Golden Experience.

This team, led by their General Manager Brooke, consistently finds new ways to connect with their community. They’ve recently developed a partnership with the Pittsburgh-area hospitals to provide 1 month of free Mini lessons for all new babies – helping to get them comfortable in the water and starting to build life-saving skills early on. And that’s not even the tip of the iceberg! Once families and swimmers enter Goldfish – Fox Chapel, they’re greeted by the smiling front desk crew, then welcomed onto the pool-deck by the lifeguards and swim instructors who are visibly excited to see their swimmers. They follow-up lessons with congratulations for all of the pool progress being made, and shout out to their FINtastic members, with extra love from Bubbles of course!

Everything the Goldfish – Fox Chapel team is doing is generating lots of buzz online, earning them great feedback from their members.

“We love Goldfish Swim School because they have thought of everything- from fun, clean facilities with great amenities, to warm water and fun coaches our kids love it and we do too. It’s a great, great experience.” – Zachary S., Goldfish – Fox Chapel Member

We are so excited to celebrate this team and the Golden Experience they provide in Fox Chapel!

WOW! Customer Service – Garden City, NY

Part of owning and operating a Goldfish Swim School is providing WOW! Customer Service! The Goldfish Swim School – Garden City team in New York truly shines with this Core Value. From a kiddo’s very first swim lesson, the team is knocking it out of the park to celebrate them and make sure they are having lots of fun, while doing some serious learning. In the pool, they are working hard to help swimmers see Extraordinary Results, celebrating every step of the way. AND, even with plenty of little ones swimming around, they make it a point to prioritize completing Digital Skill Evaluations. These evaluations help keep parents, guardians and students in the loop about their pool progress, tracking those Extraordinary Results – a big win in providing WOW! Customer Service!

The team at the Garden City school puts a ribbon on lessons with snacks from their Snack Shack – always a sure shot at a smile – and checking in with their families to make sure they had a great lesson. They receive great feedback in and out of their school, seeing reviews online mention their fin-omenal manager Alex, and the level of safety the school prioritizes. Congrats, Garden City!

Integrity, Compassion, and Trust – Winter Park, FL

Abby and the crew at Goldfish – Winter Park, Florida, are a fintastic example of our Integrity, Compassion, and Trust Core Value. Their team has been recognized for it in the Goldfish system, and their community, too! Their owner, Gina Thomas, has even been honored with several awards, including Orlando Woman of the Year and the Safety Educator Award from the Children’s Safety Village of Central Florida!

The school is consistently working with the Franchise Support Team to collaborate and continue improving their operations, finding new ways for schools to give their members a truly Golden Experience. They are fully committed to our brand standards and work hard to promote our mission through local partnerships and national organizations – including hosting a Water Safety Press Conference featuring our friends at the National Drowning Prevention Alliance! They’ve also made a huge splash with a local non-profit, Alijah’s Awareness, helping to provide swim scholarships to children with special needs – being called ”‘authentically accommodating” by parents in their school.

“I appreciate your staff. They have been authentically accommodating for my child who has serious autism. They have gone out of the way to make sure she has a teacher she is comfortable with as well as to make sure that they are watching her skill level to move her up. Autism has been tough for us with her and when we actually receive support that makes our child feel safe it’s very uplifting. The staff has been consistently aware and sensitive to my daughter’s Autism issues so clearly they are all well trained in this aspect. People seem to actually care and go the extra mile.” – Jennifer D., Goldfish – Winter Park Member

This award is so very well deserved! Congratulations, Winter Park!

Extraordinary Results – Springfield, NJ

The Goldfish – Springfield, New Jersey, team is fully committed to providing the best swim lessons in their community. They celebrate big, show love for their team and always provide a Golden Experience in lessons, driving their swimmers to achieve Extraordinary Results!

This team has high standards and it has been totally paying off! Their crew is consistent and undergoes various evaluations that keep them in tip-top shape. They set goals in each lesson, follow the Goldfish Swim School curriculum word for word and ensure that swimmers are having FUN! Parents in their community love their school and their crew – calling their experience life-changing! Now those are some Extraordinary Results!

Winning this award is just the cherry on top of great things their school has achieved and great results they’ve earned. Owners Jeff and Larissa are so incredibly proud of the swimsational culture they’ve built at their second school in Springfield, and their first location (featured below!) is honored to call them a sister school. Way to go, Springfield!

Celebrate – Boise, ID

Emily, Kirsten, and the rest of the team in Boise truly emphasize our Core Values, especially Celebrating! There is never a shortage of celebration as they make sure to focus on all of the people that make their school what it is – members, local partners, their crew and their community!

The Boise team consistently highlights and celebrates their team members and throws team parties that are always a blast. These parties bring their crew together and reward them for their hard work in and out of the pool! They even spearheaded a new initiative called the ‘Fill the Spots’ challenge, rewarding and incentivizing their team members for spreading the word about Goldfish and helping more kiddos in Boise learn to be safer in and around the water. This initiative is now spreading across the system of Goldfish Swim Schools because it was so FINtastic in Boise!

Members of the Boise school get to feel the love, too! They celebrate every milestone, big and small – Star Students, Jump Start Clinics, Move-Ups, and Swim Force Competitors, to name a few! They also host special events to give swimmers an extra chance to hop into their shiver-free water and splash around!

It doesn’t end there! They actively participate in special events and initiatives like the World’s Largest Swimming Lesson, the Safer Swimmer Pledge and Bring Your Dog to Work Day, and make a big deal out of their Monthly Celebrations, ensuring every day is worthy of celebration.

It’s our turn to Celebrate you, Boise! Congratulations!

EVEN MORE TO CELEBRATE!

These Core Value Awards and more were a hot topic of discussion at our 2023 Owners’ Celebration! This year, we brought together our Goldfish Franchise Team, school owners and vendor partners to celebrate BIG in Isle of Palms, South Carolina. We spent time collaborating, networking, learning from one another, and most importantly – celebrating each other! We recognized our five Core Value Awards, and were so excited to o-FISH-ally name our Rookie of the Year and School of the Year!

Rookie of the Year – North Attleboro, MA

The Rookie of the Year is awarded to a school that has been open less than one year, but has already made a BIG splash in their community!

The team in North Attleboro is doing just that! In the little time they’ve been open and teaching swim lessons in their community, they’ve already made big waves for water safety. They opened strong in December of 2022, teaching a swimsational 1,000 kiddos to be safer in and around the water in weekly lessons within their first 90 days, and inviting more and more members of their community to join their Goldfish family ever since! That’s a whole lot of safer swimmers in North Attleboro!

Since their opening, they’ve made a conscious effort to remain very active in their community, joining their sister schools to support fintastic water safety and philanthropy initiatives. They love shouting out their team and celebrating their swimmers and were voted as a Family Favorite for swim lessons in their area!

Congratulations, North Attleboro! We’re so happy for you, and can’t wait to see where you go from here!!

School of the Year – Livingston, NJ

Drum roll please for our School of the Year…Goldfish – Livingston! The Livingston team, sister school of our extraordinary Goldfish Swim School – Springfield, was chosen as School of the Year for truly going Above & Beyond for all things Goldfish since their doors opened in 2017. The Livingston team was previously celebrated as our Rookie of the Year in 2018, as well as the Core Value Award winner in 2021 for WOW! Customer Service – talk about swimpressive!

The Livingston team has a heavy focus on training in order to reach their goals and be successful in all that they do – and it shows! They created their own internal in-water evaluation system and consistently train all of their deck supervisors as Swimologists, which gives them the education they need to be Goldfish curriculum pros and ensure their kiddos receive truly fin-omenal lessons each and every day. This school makes sure their team has the tools, knowledge and skills that they need to provide a truly GOLDEN Experience for more than 2,600 kiddos and their families each week.

But wait, there’s more! Jeff and Larissa, along with their fintastic Regional Manager, Tiffany, love celebrating their team and their swimmers, having as much fun as they can, and leaning into all of our special celebrations, like our Monthly Celebrations and Member Appreciation Week.

Upon winning this award, Larissa was beyond excited, and only wished that the Livingston team was there with them to share in the moment and celebrate! The value and appreciation that Larissa and Jeff have for their team is truly unmatched, and they’re not the only ones who adore Goldfish – Livingston! It’s clear that all of the Livingston families love their school and their team, calling them helpful and thoughtful among other swimsational, raving reviews.

“The staff is very helpful and thoughtful. Each teacher we have encountered has been great with boosting confidence in each session. Thank You is just a small token for helping me keep (my child) safe in the water.” -Lesha W., Goldfish – Livingston Member

MAKING WAVES

While in SC, with our owners all together, we had the opportunity to celebrate the big milestones that we couldn’t have achieved without them, like…

154 Schools Open Across the United States and Canada

10 Million Swim Lessons Taught in 2023

16,760 Safer Swimmer Pledges Taken and $16,760 Donated to the USA Swimming Foundation

$22,000 of Swim Lessons Awarded through our Golden Years Campaign

28,369 World’s Largest Swim Lesson Participants among 64 Goldfish Locations

Our schools and their teams are truly something special. From living our Core Values to building our community of safer swimmers to helping decrease drowning rates, our Owners are the bread and butter of our brand. We are grateful, honored, and looking forward to making even bigger waves in 2024!

Are you ready to jump in? Join our Goldfish Family! Learn more about swim lessons near you OR career opportunities at your nearest location to be a part of the Celebration!