The backlog to complete driver’s ed in Wake has worsened. Can anything fix it?

Some Wake County teenagers are still waiting as long as five months to complete their driver’s education training to get their driver’s license.

Backlogs in the Wake County school system’s driver education program that increased during the COVID-19 pandemic are still significant. School administrators said Tuesday they’re not making as much progress as they’d like to reduce the wait time down to two-to-three months.

“Folks are working really, really hard — both on the district side and our schools and also our partners at Jordan Driving School,” Drew Cook, assistant superintendent for academics, told the school board’s student achievement committee on Tuesday. “But quite frankly, we just haven’t seen the forward progress with the challenges that are out there with hiring new drivers and seeing that wait time being drawn down.”

Wake is hoping to hire additional driving schools to help reduce the backlog.

Driver’s ed backlog has increased

Under North Carolina’s graduated licensing program, driver’s education is mandatory for anyone younger than 18 who applies to get a limited learner’s permit.

Under a new law that went into effect Jan. 1, teens who get a limited learner’s permit now have to wait nine months before getting a limited provisional driver’s license, The News & Observer previously reported.

State law requires school systems to offer driver’s education to students in public, private and home schools in their districts who want the program. Wake County charges students $65 for the service.

Students get 30 hours of classroom instruction and six hours behind the wheel before taking the test to get their permit.

Wake’s target is to get students behind the wheel within 8-to-12-weeks of completing the classroom time. But the wait is 20 weeks at five schools, 16 weeks at 15 schools and 12 weeks at five schools.

More driving instructors needed

Wake has used Jordan Driving School for many years. But Cook said Jordan still hasn’t recovered from losing a third of its driving instructors during the pandemic.

Wake now has 73 driver instructors. The goal is to get to 100 instructors, according to Devin Tanner, senior administrator for driver education.

“We don’t have enough instructors to meet the demand,” Cook said.

Administrators will ask the school board in June to renew Jordan’s contract for the 2024-25 school year.

Cook said they’ll also seek additional vendors to help reduce the backlog. But Cook said one of their concerns is that any new companies might recruit people away from Jordan, resulting in no net gain of driving instructors.

“They’re all essentially competing for the same pool of drivers,” Cook said.

Driver’s ed an ‘equity’ issue

Reducing the backlog is an “equity issue,” Cook added. Some families have turned to paying for driver’s ed out of their own pocket to speed up the process.

“Families that have the means potentially don’t have to wait in line because they can go find other private vendors to provide instruction right at the cost of $400+ or more dollars and essentially get into an express lane to move around the long lines,” Cook said. “That’s something that continues to be a concern.”

Tanner said schools can now hold five behind-the-wheel slots that they can use to manually register families “for extenuating circumstances.”

Wake is also partnering with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Wake County to help provide virtual driver’s classroom instruction to underserved students.