Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : District May Put Brakes on Driver Training : Education: Hart school board will probably eliminate hands-on courses because of funding cutbacks and a court ruling that prohibits charging fees.

The William S. Hart Union High School District will probably join the growing list of public schools in the state no longer offering hands-on driver training courses, although classroom courses in driving safety will continue.

The district’s director of curriculum, Gary Wexler, said he would recommend to board members that the course be dropped because of drastic cutbacks in state funds for driver training and a recent court decision that banned charging students for the training.

The course was popular with students, in large part because passing it allowed them to get their driver’s license at age 16 instead of age 18. Those who completed the course would also be charged lower insurance fees.

Wexler said he will make the recommendation with regret. “If a student takes five Advanced Placement classes but doesn’t know how to drive correctly and gets killed in a collision (because) they haven’t had the kind of background needed for society, then I feel it’s not only a tragedy,” Wexler said, “it’s a squandering of resources.”

Wexler said more than 200 school districts offered hands-on driver training courses until Gov. Pete Wilson decided in 1990 to shift the money, collected from motorist fines, to the state’s general fund. Now, only about 30 districts offer the program.

The district’s board of trustees will vote on the recommendation at its Wednesday night meeting. Board President John Hassel said it’s unlikely that the cash-starved district could come up with the $187,000 a year needed for the program.

“It doesn’t seem as though we have much choice, considering the legal issues and economic issues,” he said. “It seems to be part of the past.”

On-road training classes had been offered by the district for decades, Wexler said, to supplement a district-required 10-week classroom driver education course.

Students were charged $130 for the hands-on training following Wilson’s decision, but California’s 6th District Court of Appeal ruled in December that the fee violated the California Constitution free-school guarantee.

“If you can’t offer it for free, you can’t have it,” Wexler said.

About 1,100 students in the district were paying to take the driver training course, consisting of six hours in a driving simulator, two to three hours of road driving and nine hours of riding as an observer, Wexler said.

College of the Canyons, a two-year community college in Valencia, has expressed interest in taking over the program, believing it could be operated profitably, Wexler said. College officials said Monday they are waiting until the Hart board votes Wednesday before making any final decisions.

The other alternative for students is private driving schools, which Wexler says don’t always match the instructional quality of district classes. But Don Dupuy, owner of Eagle Driving School in Santa Clarita, contends his program is better than what the district offered.

“I think private industry can compete with any government industry and beat their butts any day,” he said. A six-hour hands-on course at his school costs $170 and a four-day course, which includes the district’s required classroom instruction, costs $259, Dupuy said.

He said his school provides one-on-one instruction, whereas the district often had four students in a car.