A Brooklyn teacher is about to get a tough lesson in the power of social media. After making a callous remark on her cell phone about a beach field trip that had resulted in a student’s death, her friend took the discussion to Facebook.

When her friend asked the teacher if she wouldn’t throw a life-jacket, she responded, “No. I wouldn’t for a million dollars.”

During her phone conversation, the teacher also commented, “I hate their guts!”

The Facebook remark was copied and forwarded to the school’s vice principal. The teacher is now fighting for her job, claiming that she does a good job, and those comments were supposed to be private.

She picked the wrong time and forum to vent.

From USASwimming.org:

In July 2009, USA Swimming initiated a collaborative partnership with four swim teams in the city of Detroit. The purpose of this two year project is to learn how USA Swimming can help impact swimming in an underserved urban environment by providing expertise in the form of clinics, site visits and coach mentoring. As a pilot program, the goal is to develop a working model of programming that is transferable to other similar environments. USA Swimming thanks the outstanding swimmers, coaches and parents of the Tigersharks Swim Team, Leroy Dues Swim Team, Razor Aquatics and the Detroit Recreation Swim Team for their enthusiastic participation and collaboration in this project.

Congratulations to the Make a Splash initiative on reaching the half-million mark! Not bad for having started in 2007.

Cullen Jones and ConocoPhillips can take big credit for the program’s success, due to their multi-city tour since 2009. Belying the research that says that black parents turn down free swim lessons, of 1,000 vouchers for free lessons, 600 people redeemed them.

This could really make a dent in the drowning rate. If these numbers continue, childhood drowning could go the way of small pox.

Here’s to the second half-million new swimmers.

For more information on Make a Splash, click here.