Parks and Recreation offers classes – just for fun

Thursday, March 23, 2006

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Over the past few years, county Parks and Recreation classes have leaped forward in popularity. Thanks to the ever-popular swim classes, computer courses and niche offerings like kayaking and scrapbooking, youth in particular are flocking to classes offered throughout the county.

From 2003 to 2005, the number of youth classes offered rose slightly from 4,510 to 4,640. But the number of registered kids soared from 45,260 to 53,300.

The total class offering has grown steadily as well from 11,560 to 12,440 between 2003 and 2005. Likewise, the total number of enrolled students grew from 94,200 to 108,330. In other words, they added 12,000 more clients countywide in two years.

‘‘Swim, swim, swim, swim!” the class instructor yelled in the humid pool room, as the students were tested on their backstroke, their breathing technique, their kicking and other criteria.

‘‘I don’t think you can make enough swim classes,” joked Patricia Homan, public affairs specialist for Parks and Recreation. She said their classes, though, were ‘‘all over the map.”

Kathy Coleman, a Bowie resident whose 9-year-old son, Kyle, was taking swim lessons last week, said her whole family enjoys the classes. She takes aerobics, her husband has taken weight training and her son takes swimming and soccer.

‘‘He loves them. He can’t wait to come,” Coleman said, as Kyle bobbed in the water. ‘‘He’s not really big into sports, but he’s big into this.”

She said it was the selection, the value and the location that attracted her family.

‘‘It’s almost like they’ve got a corner on the market,” she said. ‘‘They’ve got a lot of things for a lot of different people.”

This summer, Parks and Recreation is offering a wide range of camps – Computer Animation Camp, Art Camp: Shakespeare, Nature Camp: Wildlife Safari, Target Shooting Camp, Junior Marines Camp, Cheerleading Camp and a booklet of other choices.

The camps typically last two weeks and cost from $25 to $190 for Prince George’s and Montgomery residents.

The most expensive camps are for all-day instruction. Regular classes, which meet up to three times a week, range from $25 to about $110.

An eight-class session of swimming is $50.

‘‘I hear more and more people want to take lessons,” said instructor Celeste Foreman. ‘‘But they get booked so quickly.”

‘‘We’re very competitive in price, and I just think parents for at least 10 years now have been actively trying to keep their children involved in sports.” Homan said. ‘‘If they show an interest in something, they don’t have to be a world class athlete or a world class musician.”

Residents interested in signing up can visit www.pgparks.com.

E-mail Judson Berger at jberger@gazette.net.