Driver's education students facing long road ahead while schools work through training backlog

Jennifer Parrish's son, Carson, was in the middle of driver's education class last year when the pandemic shut it down.

“It is a rite of passage for teens to get their permit and to get their license,” Parrish said.

Wake County contracts with the Jordan Driving School to provide driver's ed. The company pivoted and started offering online classes when the pandemic shut schools down.

The behind-the-wheel training was eliminated until recently.

“When they finally started letting us drive again, we had taught 3,000 kids,” instructor William Powell said.

The school lost about half of its instructors, which makes chipping away the backlog slow going.

Students who took class in November or December in Wake County are just now getting behind-the-wheel training. The school is taking students in chronological order, based on when the class was taken. Another obstacle for new drivers is getting into a Division of Motor Vehicles office. The agency is in the same boat, with a backlog of about 6,000 students across the state waiting to get driving tests, which were also halted during the pandemic.