Swim School Policy Fine-Print Checklist

📝 Start Here — Before You Ask About Price

• Ask for the enrollment agreement before you ask for the price. Every answer below should end up in writing on that document. A policy quoted only out loud is not a policy you can hold anyone to later.
• Bring this on the tour, with someone in front of you who can answer. Reconstructing terms from a website two days later is how families end up guessing. Fill it in while the person who knows is standing there.
• Use the School A and School B columns. A single completed checklist tells you very little. Two side by side tells you which school actually fits how your family lives.
• Remember what you are buying. The point of all of this is that your child keeps swimming. A policy is only worth arguing about because consistent lessons are what build the skill.

🔁 1. Which Enrollment Model Are You In?

🎫 2. Makeup Lessons — the Number Is the Least Important Part

⏸️ 3. Freeze, Hold and Pause

🚪 4. Cancellation — How Do I Leave?

• “What notice do I have to give, in days?” Thirty days’ written notice is the most common policy at perpetual schools, so leaving usually costs one more month. That is normal — just budget for it.
• “Does an email count, or does it have to be a form?” The strictest published policies require a withdrawal form signed at the facility. Find out now, while you are already standing in it.
• “When exactly does the 30 days start?” The date you send notice, the date they process it, or the start of the next billing cycle. Those are three different final bills.
• “Does my notice start if I still have prepaid lessons?” This is the clause that turns month-to-month into a term. Ask it in exactly these words and write the answer down.
• “Is pausing for the summer treated as cancelling?” At some schools a long freeze ends enrollment and you rejoin as a new family, join fee and all.
• “Can you show me where that is written?” A friendly, completely reasonable question. Any school confident in its terms will simply point at the paragraph.

💳 5. Refund or Credit?

• “If we stop mid-month, is anything refunded?” Often nothing, and that is a legitimate policy. You just want to know it before you pay rather than after.
• “Is that a refund or an account credit?” A refund is money back. A credit only holds value inside the school you are trying to leave. This is the distinction that matters most.
• “Do credits expire?” A credit with a short expiry attached to a school you have left is worth close to nothing.
• “What happens if we withdraw for medical reasons?” Many otherwise strict policies carve out documented medical withdrawal. Ask what documentation they want.
• “What happens to my prepayment if the school closes or is sold?” Ownership changes happen. It is a fair question and the answer tells you how much to prepay.
• Think twice before prepaying a year into a no-refund policy. Prepay discounts are real, but so is the risk. Match the size of the prepayment to how confident you are after a trial class.

⭐ 6. Membership Tiers and Add-Ons

• “What does the upgrade tier actually add?” Commonly a monthly private mini-lesson, gear discounts, priority scheduling or guest passes. Price those individually before you agree.
• “How many months will we realistically use it?” A monthly private lesson is valuable for a child stuck at a level, much less so for one already progressing in a group.
• “Can I cancel the tier without cancelling the lessons?” The question people forget. Some upgrades unwind separately; some restart the whole enrollment conversation.
• “Is the tier price locked, or reviewed annually?” You are budgeting a year. An unmodelled annual increase is a real line item.
• “How often do you raise tuition, and when did you last?” Ask it about the base rate too, not just the tier.

🚩 Answers Worth a Second Look

• “We’ll sort that out if it comes up.” Policy questions have policy answers. Vagueness now is a negotiation later, at a moment when you have no leverage.
• A fee or rule quoted only out loud. Anything that affects what you pay should be on the enrollment agreement before you sign it.
• Pressure to enroll today for a rate that expires tonight. A checklist filled in calmly beats a discount that requires you not to fill one in.
• A generous makeup headline with no written restrictions offered. The restrictions exist. If nobody will state them, that is the answer to the question.
• Reluctance to show you the paragraph you asked about. Not proof of anything wrong — but it is the moment to slow down and read the whole document yourself.