Roanoke Rapids Graded School District will resume Driver’s Education late this summer under a new contract with the North Carolina Driving School. Students who completed the classroom portion in winter of 2020 will be the first students to have the opportunity to complete the behind the wheel portion of the class. Those students who have not taken the classroom portion and were signed up for the summer 2020 session will have classroom sessions once the driving portion is completed by the winter 2020 cohort.
RRGSD recently contracted with the North Carolina Driving School due to a decrease in funding from the Department of Public Instruction for Driver’s Education. This contract saves the district the cost of purchasing and maintaining vehicles and thus allows all of the funding received to be used to provide Driver’s Ed for all of our students who are eligible.
“Without making this change, we would either have to charge families for this service, which we and our school board are against, or limit the availability of Driver’s Ed to our students,” said Tom Davis, Director of Student Services.
The RRGSD Board of Trustees has explored various options over the past few months and voted earlier this month to move forward with the new contract to avoid seriously impacting availability of Driver’s Education throughout the district. The current Strong Schools NC Public Health Toolkit (K-12) prohibits more than two passengers in a contracted vehicle. For that reason some adjustments may be made by the N.C. Driving School to accommodate students.