Driving School

So i have been driving for 23 years, and i recently made the jump from driver to instructor at a new school. One of my duties is to go around to different companies and recruit. now we do have our accreditation from the state and everything is in order. and with myself and the other instructors we have a combination of 80 years of experience . the question i posed to the forum is this: if you had a school who was offering the course at 50% off at 4 weeks would you jump on it ?

I went to CDL School over 4 years ago, but the school I went to was good and bad. The instructors were all very knowledgeable and were very easy to work with and you could tell all of them cared about passing on their knowledge. It was paid for by the VA for me but, I'd definitely pay out of pocket looking back.

Now... the negatives. The class size was about 40 students so every seat was full, with some standing and every instructor had 10-15 students. The worst 2 parts, in my opinion were the trucks and the seat time... all the trucks ran but they were Volvo VNL's with manual transmissions that were beat to crap and weren't well maintained. The actual testing truck was an International that they did maintain.

The seat time, when I went, the school still had previous students from prior classes that were coming back to practice before going out with the tester, so the trucks to student ratio, wasn't ideal. In our 4 weeks, i think we went on the road for about 30 minutes twice or 3 times, with 3 other students watching the one driving and the instructor in the passenger seat and we'd rotate at specific points on the route.

Overall, I'm very glad I chose the school I went to and to answer your question, I'd definitely pay for that program again but the most important things I'd consider would be the quality of the instructors and the hands on experience the school offered, regardless of the price. Anyone can tell you to read the Pre-Trip and walk around the truck. The difference though is if the instructors WANT TO be there and actually give you real life situations and experiences to consider as a driver, and not just collect a paycheck and play on their phones.

Pinky has a point. So, Alan, at those half-off prices are you going to take all comers and have large classes with limited wheel/instructor time in those four weeks, or are you going to go the quality route with four students at a time? I'm a CDL instructor with a large nationwide company and I've seen both extremes. (I'm simply an instructor, I have zero to do with the pricing.)

If you have one truck and six students, compared to a truck with four students, the fixed costs will be nearly the same, but what will be the student achievement and first-time pass rate between the two classes?

I'd say it may be the difference between a $40 Ozark Trail (Walmart) fishing rod and an $80 White River kit from Cabelas. You get what you pay for.

I would suggest don't do such a cut rate.

With the size of the freight market having been reduced to a fraction of what it used to be and the rates accordingly and given that this is probably going to be the way it is for years, possibly even decades to come, is it really wise to try to opperate a school on a quantity basis rather than quality or specialized?

I would think that trying to partner with carriers whom don't want the burden of a school or maybe delving into specialized instruction might be more beneficial.