Meet Kayla Barrett. She is the General Manager at Aqua-Tots Swim School located right off Ruccio Way and West Reynolds Road. They provide families with life-saving swimming instructions to prevent drownings by offering a year-round training center in a clean, safe, and family friendly teaching environment. Their state-of-the-art swim schools are designed with you in mind to keep your family safe and to ensure your family enjoys every swimming class. They provide swimming instructions designed for children of all ages and abilities, including infant and baby swim lessons, toddler swim lessons, and swimming classes for kids of all ages: 4 months, age 2, age 3, age 4, age 5… all the way to age 12! They also offer swim lessons for adults and special needs students. See what makes the Aqua-Tots experience so special!
Thank you, Kayla, for providing a standard of excellence in teaching children and adults water safety.
Q:How long have you lived or worked in Lexington?
A: I moved here in August of 2018 when I was promoted to a General Manager for Aqua-Tots.
Q: What inspired you or led you to your current career?
A: I worked for Aqua-Tots during my undergrad up in Indianapolis. I wanted a job where I wasn’t just clocking in and out, but something where I could see the impact that I was making on the community. I get to see the kids progress and also developing into their own person. We work with kids as young as 4 months old and adults as well. You get a nice variety of people and working with them is just very rewarding.
Q: Do you offer adult lessons at different times?
A: We do adult lessons outside of our normal business hours for comfortability. We don’t want an adult learning how to swim next to a 4 year old who might be more advanced in their ability. So we try to take that away to make them most comfortable. Adults also work with our most advanced instructor, usually our aquatic manager who has more experienced with different strokes and techniques to be able to communicate the curriculum to an adult which is a lot different than teaching young children.
Q: What is something that you want the people to know about your job or business?
A: Probably one of the most important things is that you are able to start lessons at any time or age. Where not a session based program. We offer perpetual learning which means you can come and go as you please. It also means that we don’t have a cut off, so if your kid is over the age of 4 they can still come and learn how to swim and we’ll have a spot for them in our program. We offer flexible scheduling from Sunday through Saturday so we are bound to have a time that works with your schedule.
We have multiple levels. Levels 1 and 2 are parent and tot programs. There will be 4 kiddos with 1 parent in the water and they are working on safety skills and comfortability in the water. We have some older kids around 6 or 7 who have just started swimming and they don’t like to take baths or have their head wet. By starting them off at 4 months or as an infant, they are not going to develop that fear of the water and be more comfortable. Tragic situations can happen at any time, so if a 2 year old has had some lessons before, they will know what to do if their head accidentally goes under the water. This can be useful to them in the bathtub, in a neighbor’s pool, and at the beach. Levels 1 and 2 are popular because not only are you forming that connection with your child and seeing their progression, but you’re also teaching them valuable life and safety skills.
Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Lexington, and what do you love there?
A: I would say my new favorite restaurant is the Agave & Rye and I get The Bee’s Knees and a Plain Jane with chips & salsa. I also like Hacienda because that is where my team goes when we go out and eat. I love their Pollo Bandolero.
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?
A: I would say probably somewhere in Europe. I think maybe Scotland or Ireland somewhere over there because of the heritage. Especially Ireland. Going to the really neat old bars and just learning about the history and their heritage I think would be really fun.
Q: What is the topic you wish you knew about?
A: Maybe history? I feel like I know a lot but I always want to know more. Growing up my family and I use to always go on vacation to Florida. Then one year my dad lost his glasses at the beach and that took a turn, so all of the vacations after that had something historical related to it.
Q: What is the song that you can sing all the lyrics by memory?
A: Right now I’ve been listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin so I would say that one song that that I could just start singing would be “Whole Lotta Love.” It’s a great one.
Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: To take my mom anywhere she wants to go. All expenses on me because of everything she’s done for me and my family. We would probably go to Ireland because that’s where she wants to go too.
Q: What is your favorite music and who is your favorite artist?
A: I like just about every type of music. Right now my favorite would have to be Tyler Childers.
Q: Choosing anyone alive and a non-relative: with whom would you love to have lunch and why?
A: I would say Miranda Lambert. Not only I do love her music but also she gives a lot to the community that she works with and that’s just very inspiring.
Q: What is your favorite thing or something unique about Lexington?
A: The people. I grew up in a very large city with lots of different types of people that weren’t especially the nicest. I feel like here in Lexington I haven’t had any bad experiences with anyone. Everyone is really welcoming and homey. I also love Keeneland, that’s really fun. Everything is centrally located too. It’s nice to be able to hop on New Circle and get somewhere in just a few minutes.
Q: When you have people coming here from out of town that visit you that never been here yet, what is something you get to take them to do?
A: I’m really big into my family having them visit. I like to take them to Keeneland or Castle and Key. Whenever my mom and dad come down we like to hit a new brewery or distillery between here and Louisville. I also really like Mirror Twin.
Q: Where would we found you on your days off?
A: You can find me either curled up in my bed with my dog Willow watching NCIS or hanging out with my niece and my nephews back in Cincinnati. They are 5 and 3 so they’re a lot of fun.
Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
A: Hopefully still working for Aqua-Tot’s. There is a lot of potential for growth for all of the employees here. I think hopefully my next step would be to be regional manager in the next 5 years. Traveling amongst all of our schools and just helping the people that are in my current position do their job best and serving as a mentor to them just like my boss has done for me.
Q: What is something interesting that most people don’t know about you?
A: I’m younger than what you may think. I’m only 23 and that’s something surprising for the people that work with me. Growing up I had a sister that was 5 years older than me and I am the youngest of all of the grandchildren. I had to really boost up my maturity hanging out with them or I wasn’t aloud to hang out with them. I kind of grew up pretty quick, which was nice and it was extremely helpful for me and my professional career.
Q: If you were cast into a major motion picture and had your choice of anyone to be your co-star, who would you choose?
A:. Matthew McConaughey, Brad Pitt, or Denzel Washington.
Q: What advice would you give a group of people?
A: Be as genuine as you can. Whatever persona or face you put up for a group of people is not going to help you 5 years from now. Be yourself, be genuine, be authentic and it will take you many places.
