District 214 Community Education

Camp Italia is a fun-filled cultural adventure for kids in grades 1-5! This immersive summer camp introduces children to Italian culture, language, and traditions through exciting hands-on activities. Campers will learn basic Italian words and songs, cook delicious treats like pizza and gelato, create beautiful Italian-inspired crafts, play traditional games, and enjoy engaging story-time and theater. Each day is packed with music, movement, and creativity, making learning about Italy both fun and educational. Join Mariangela Bonasera, Wheeling High School Italian teacher, for a summer of discovery and adventure—where every day feels like a trip to Italy!

Please make sure you review our ENTIRE season packet prior to registering. Our season packet can be found by clicking here. New Swimmer Evaluations All interested swimmers who have not been a part of Core will need to register for an evaluation. Evaluations will be held on March 23rd. Evaluations will run as follows: 8U: 9:45 - 10:15 am 9 - 11 year olds: 10:30 - 11am 12 - 14 year olds: 11:15 - 11:45 am High school swimmers looking to join our team will need to fill out this document and Coach Drum will email you directly. Swimmer’s will complete a typical age appropriate practice while being evaluated by our coaching staff. Your swimmer should be able to swim a full length of freestyle and backstroke without stopping in order to register for our evaluations. Completing an evaluation does not guarantee a spot on our team. We will email evaluation placement along with links to our registration page by 5pm on Sunday March 23rd. The day of evaluation will be strictly and in water assessment of the swimmers. All questions about our team or practice schedule should be emailed to Coach Drum prior to our evaluations: tara.drum@d214.org. All participants must register prior to March 20th @ 12pm. Walk-ins will not be accepted. Registration for evaluations will open 2/19. Please click here to register for an evaluation. You will receive in-depth directions about our evaluation procedures by Friday March 21st. USA Swim: All swim team members must also be members of USA Swimming. Membership is an additional $87 per year additional fee for the annual membership. Weekly Practice Schedule: We completely understand that families can be very busy during the school year and our athletes may not be able to attend every single practice every week. Please do the best you can to attend as many weekly practices as possible: you get out of it what you put into it! Please note pool space in District 214 is in extremely high demand, and Core Aquatics does not always get priority for scheduling. Please note schedules will change. It is important that athletes and their families check and follow the Core Aquatics website practice calendar and not the dates listed on Eleyo at sign up: those dates are a general guide with most up to date information available on our website. We are a competitive USA Swim club. Our Swim team is divided into four practice squads that are grouped solely on ability level and not age. Swimmers compete based on their age but practice based on their current skills and abilities. Our coaching staff will decide which practice squad best fits your swimmers current skill level. New members will undergo our evaluation process to determine which practice squad they will register with. Returning members should sign up for the same squad they were previously on unless a coach invites them to practice on a different squad. Members are not entitled to pick a squad that fits their schedule or that they think they should practice on. Coaching staff is always available to discuss goals for moving to the next practice squad but ultimately the coaching staff’s reserves the right to decide which squad and lane swimmers practice in. Our practice squads are as follows: Orange – Broken into Orange 1 and Orange 2. Proper mechanics are required with an emphasis on racing and competing. This squad is open to graduates from our Swim Team Prep program or swimmers who can demonstrate ability to swim all four competitive strokes as well as show confidence diving from the blocks. Orange 2 swimmers spend about 90% of practice working on stroke technique and 10% on endurance, while Orange 1 adds a little more endurance to their foundation. In order to qualify for our Orange practice squad swimmers will be asked to demonstrate a broken 400 swim (100 easy free, 100 kick, 100 pull and 100 IM) with ease and technically correct. Blue – Broken into Blue 1 and Blue 2 - the Blue Squad focuses on stroke technique and endurance as key aspects for advancing all four competitive strokes. This practice squad is open to swimmers who can demonstrate an ability to legally swim all four competitive strokes for 100+ yards, including proper turns, and diving off the blocks. Blue swimmers spend 75% of their practices working on stroke technique and 25% building both aerobic and anaerobic endurance. Swimmers must demonstrate drill knowledge and be able to read a workout with guidance. Silver – Broken into Silver 1 and Siver 2 - the Silver Squad features continued race training and development of advanced swim techniques. Open to swimmers who can demonstrate an ability to legally swim all four competitive strokes for 200+ yards, including proper turns, streamline, and diving off the blocks. Silver swimmers must be able to swim 1000+ yards of freestyle nonstop. Silver swimmers spend about 50% of their practices working on stroke technique and the other 50% working on both aerobic and anaerobic sets with an emphasis on power and precision. Dryland workouts will be incorporated into daily swim practices beginning around November. Swimmers typically swim 3,000 - 4,000 yards throughout a 1.5 hour practice. To be considered for our Silver practice squad, swimmers must be able to demonstrate all competitive swim components, be legal in all 4 strokes, read and understand a workout with ease, be familiar with swim meet structure and events, and have former team experience. Navy – Broken into Navy 1, 2 & 3 – The elite Navy Squad is for senior level and advanced swimmers training for success at the high school level and beyond. This practice squad is on an invitation only from the Head Coach and Lead Senior Coaches. Our Navy squad requires additional commitment to training and dryland opportunities. Our Navy Squad often gets separated into three separate practices where workouts will meet the swimmer at the level they join us at. Swimmers are expected to be on time for all practices and committed to train at a high level for the duration of the season. We also offer our pre-competitive program “Swim Team Prep”. In this program members focus and prepare to be future competitive swimmers who wish to compete and train in a swim team style. Members must have made it to the Swordfish level of our Learn 2 Swim class or be proficient in both freestyle and backstroke and can swim at least 25 yards of both strokes without stopping. Skills and then drills are taught to enhance stroke technique and teach breaststroke & butterfly, starts, and streamlines. Practices are run in a swim team style with sets, drills, starts and finishes. Coaches are not consistently in the water with swimmers, but may occasionally be in the water to help with a skill.