Berkeley Aquatic Club & Swim School

Decided to try this school based on neighborhood recommendations. No complaints about the swim instruction. However, the manager is disrespectful and completely unprofessional. I wasn’t surprised to read more negative reviews specifically about him. We are new to the area and chose between several schools. The enrollment is not cheap, and for this price, I would at least expect management to happily answer any questions. When I asked a very straightforward question, I was completely disregarded and told to just read the website for information. And this was just the start my my encounter with this school. No thanks. If you can’t answer my questions as the owner in a professional and respectful way then I will go somewhere else. There are several well rated swim schools in this area. For anyone reading this, please remember to read the reviews in the bottom link that are hidden by Unilocal

I read the negative reviews, and I’m a bit disappointed to see that people fail to see the real quality of the place.
If you are looking for a fancy place, it’s not for you.
If you are looking for great customer service, it’s not for you. This place is run by one person, and he has no time for wasting time. Class is 30 min. You drop your child and you come back in 30 minutes. 30 minutes is not enough time to address personal water phobias. Towney is there every day, if you have special issues address it before class. Way before!
Somebody mentioned money hungry. I never noticed it, price is very reasonable.
Towney is the director, the secretary, the finance person and the cleaner from time to time. And he does it in his own way. Yes, it’s old fashion. Nothing wrong with that.
Yes, the places and the style is archaic, I agree. So??? I’m not there for the décor.
Finally, Let’s talk about the quality of teaching: as someone else commented, the quality of teachers is great. Both my kids learn how to swim, improve their styles and their confidence in the water. If you meet the criteria for the level, you move up. If not, you stay another semester.
No, I’m not an insider. Just a parent that sending her 2^nd child to swim school.

I’m being super generous w the stars. I’m about to send m y 3^rd kid to Berkeley Aquatics … They’ve really done a great job teaching them to swim. I’ve yet to come across a coach /​instructor that isn’t great, and I like their semi-​hardcore approach to lessons — no parents in the pool area during lessons (too distracting) ., small class size (like 5, 6 kids). Kids seem to thrive there and learn fairly quickly to become confident swimmers which is the ultimate goal of sending them there .
That said, the place is a dump. Like Zero stars dump. Even if they scrubbed this pool deck, the dismal waiting area or locker rooms/​restrooms, the place would still be vile. They’ve been in some political brawl for a few years trying to build a new location, so I imagine they haven’t invested much in maintenance, but it’s shabby. Really shabby. Like u don’t want to put ur bare feet on the ground, or sit in the nasty windowless waiting area.
The pool looks clean tho, and I’ve never had any pink eye, health issues w my kids, otherwise I wouldn’t set foot in this dump.
And yes, their in-​person 1950s style class registration is antiquated, and slow. Their online registration only begins after the in-​person registration day is complete, so u risk missing class times/​days. Because that makes sense.
And yes, Towney (sp) the guy who runs the programs is a little db-​ish, but either he has gotten a little better/​more personable in recent years, or I’m just getting used to him.
So, swim instructors/​instruction: 4 stars
Actual building/​amenities: 0 stars

I agreed with comments from other people. My two sons took their lessons there in 2012 because we heard some good report about this place. The director was very busy to answer any questions from parents and did not allow us to watch. The cancellation/​make up is hard. Although they said we can make up at any time, it was based on the availability. Since it is a good 40 min. drive for us and they said there was a waiting list in summer for makeup, we did not bother to try the makeup in summer and afterwards.
The bad thing about it is that we were not sure about the level to register, so we registered based on our report from prior swim lesson at Y and Y’s reports. After the first lesson, they put them in a lower level because my children’s level were actual in between the levels. They promised a move-​up to higher level. But they never did. Both higher and lower level groups were already filled with enough kids.
Water was colder than other indoor pools.

When I went to enroll my son for the first time this summer I did not like the swim school’s director demeanor but shrugged it off. A friend of mine that has two kids there told me that the director is indeed very rude and that everybody hates him but they can’t do anything about it.
I decided to cancel my son’s lessons and after not succeeding with the phone (each time the answering machine turned on but did not give a chance to leave a message), I filled the form on the web. I never got any response from the swim school, my check was cashed already, so we decided to give it a try. When we showed up for the first lesson the director called all the kids for that session but not my son. It took us good 5 minutes to make our way to him, he was there but to get his attention was hard. After going to his office and looking through the stack with the enrollment forms he asked «Didn’t you cancel?» I said that I tried but since I did not get a response and the check was cashed I assumed that I did not cancel. Then the director started walking telling us to come with him and we followed, my son talking to him at that time. Not paying attention, just following, the next thing I realize is: WE WERE IN THE MEN’s BATHROOM AND THE GUY WAS USING IT! I just turned around as quickly as possible, I could not believe it!
He came out and told my son to go to the teacher and shoved me out of the pool area. I did not have a chance to tell the swim instructor that my son had just 10 swimming lessons at the YMCA in Summit, and although almost 8 he is very uncomfortable with putting his head in the water. At the end of the lesson my son came out crying, he said he attempted to tell the instructor twice but he wouldn’t listen. The classes were supposed to be of max 8 kids, my son was the 9^th that day due to the «cancellation». The pool is 3 feet deep so the swim instructors are just walking occasionally, but mostly they sit at one end of the pool and yell at or cheer the kids.
The water at the Berkeley aquatic’s pool is colder than the water at the Summit YMCA. The pool at the Y is much deeper — from 3 to 9 feet. The swim instructors there are much more devoted, they swim the whole time with the kids. We were able to get also private lessons at the Y (Berkeley aquatic does not do private lessons at the club, although their brochure states otherwise). At the Y’s pool they also have family swim time and if the kids are YMCA members the parents can join them in the pool if they pay just $ 60 for 10 hours, without having to be members themselves. The kids at the Y also use floatation belts if they need support.
When I was deciding on swim lessons this summer, I wished there were more reviews about the YMCA in Summit and the Berkeley aquatic club to make my decision easier. This is the reason I took time to do that here.

Money hungry is all I have to say. The place is unorganized and the director «Tony» is as rude as they come. All he cares about is collecting your check. We had our kids enrolled in the swim school there for two years and we have not seen any improvement. Too many kids per class in a rinky dink dirty pool that reeks of chlorine. When we brought our concerns to the director «Tony» about the lack of progress with our kids swimming, all he did was shrug his shoulders and say; «I’ll tell the teacher to keep an eye on them» Well after confronting him more than once… we are done. Yanking them out of that dump and placing them in NJ Swim in Warren.