District 211 to outsource behind-the-wheel part of driver's ed

Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 will begin outsourcing the behind-the-wheel portion of its driver education classes, resulting in an anticipated savings of more than $500,000 per year and the reallocation of teachers for smaller units of the district's wellness classes.

School board members Thursday unanimously approved a two-year contract with Lombard-based Top Driver to provide the six hours of behind-the-wheel instruction at $499 per student.

The district sent out 10 requests for information to area driving schools and received responses from two. Only Top Driver was able to meet all the requirements of the school district's needs, officials said.

"In order to create smaller class sizes to deliver an excellent wellness curriculum, we needed to identify efficiencies," Superintendent Dan Cates said. "Our teachers will continue to teach the classroom instruction for driver education, and we are recommending that we utilize the professional driver education services of Top Driver to deliver the behind-the-wheel instruction. Through savings and greater efficiency, we will then be able to redeploy these teachers and resources toward student wellness."

The approximately $540,000 per year the district expects to save through the change will come largely by selling off most of its current fleet of 32 driver education cars. Only 12 will be kept to meet current needs within the transportation and maintenance fleet.

Elimination of maintenance, replacement and fuel costs for these vehicles would make the savings realized ongoing, officials said.

Only about a third of District 211 students take driver education through the district.

School board members asked whether an arrangement could be found to avoid having Top Driver's vehicles parked prominently in the schools' lots and providing free advertising for the company.

Administrators committed to looking into what possibilities were available to park the company's cars discreetly.