August 2007

A Letter to our Green Light Driving Academy Parents

Learning to be a safe and defensive driver will be one of the most important skills learned during your teen’s adolescence. Good skills and habits learned during their formal driving instruction will last a lifetime.

The state of Texas requires students to hold their instruction permit (or learner’s permit) for a minimum of six months. In other words, although a student may complete the required driver education course and reach the age of 16, they must still hold the valid permit for six months (from the day it is issued) before they can apply for their driver’s license.

Green Light Driving Academy’s driver education program requires a student to complete the scheduled classroom instruction before they are activated in the on-line scheduling system (Schedule2Drive) and allowed to begin the behind-the-wheel instruction. This allows the student to concentrate fully on the classroom instruction before scheduling the driving portion of the course.

The Green Light Driving Academy contract has been set up to allow some flexibility to work within a student and parent’s schedule. While a student has six months to complete the classroom instruction (this is allowed for students to complete any make-up for classes missed), they have one full year to complete all driving instruction. Our recommendation is to plan at least 6 months to go through the whole program.

By distributing the driving instruction over this period of time, it allows students to gain more experience behind the wheel, which we feel is the most important part of the driver training. Although not required by the state of Texas, Green Light Driving Academy strongly recommends that for every hour of driving instruction completed by the student with Green Light instructors, parents should drive with the student a minimum of four hours. We would also recommend that this driving instruction with parents occur before the next scheduled Green Light driving lesson.

After activation on the scheduling system, a student may schedule one driving lesson per week that is posted on the schedule. Green Light Driving Academy will always have 3 – 4 weeks of driving lessons posted in the on-line scheduling system for you to reserve. During the academic school year, we offer evening and weekend driving instruction and add daytime driving during the summer months. This allows flexibility for students and their parents as well as Green Light Driving Academy employees.

New driving instruction slots are posted once a week in the on-line scheduling system on Fridays between 5:30-6:30 PM. Drive times are scheduled on a first come first serve basis. Check the on-line driving schedule periodically, because students may cancel a future driving lesson or instructors may add additional drive times from the regular times added on Friday.

Please remember to be flexible and considerate when scheduling driving times. Your child is not the only student enrolled at Green Light Driving Academy and at any given time, we have between 300-500 students active on our scheduling system. If your child has a drive lesson scheduled, please make every effort to be in attendance or to cancel the drive time at least 24 hours in advance. Any drives times cancelled inside the 24-hour window will be charged a no-show fee. Any student that does not show up for their drive time or does not have a valid permit with them will be charged a no-show fee. This fee is $25.00 for each instance.

In addition, please do not wait until the end of the contract period to attempt to schedule driving lessons. It is suggested that at least one drive time per month is scheduled. This allows the students to spread out their driving lessons and receive more practice. It will be very difficult if not impossible for your child to finish their driving instruction by the desired date if they wait until one month before the date they wish to complete lessons to begin scheduling driving lessons.

We understand that many of our students are very involved in multiple extra-curricular activities and their schedules can be very full. Parents must also realize that at any given time, Green Light Driving Academy has at least 300 active driving students. (This is less than many of the other commercial driving schools in the area). It is impossible for us to customize a schedule for every student. The more flexible a student is when they are scheduling drive times, the easier it will be to complete the in-car instruction portion of our course. For example, if a student can only drive on Tuesday afternoons at 4:30, it will be VERY difficult for that student to complete the in-car instruction within one year.

According to the TEA rules and regulations, Green Light Driving Academy cannot and will not extend the length of the contract for conflicts with extra-curricular activities. When the term of the contract has expired, Green Light Driving Academy has no choice but to terminate the student. Students will then be required to start over with the uncompleted portions of the class. A new contract must be completed and new tuition fees would apply.

Green Light Driving Academy’s goal is to promote safe and meaningful instruction for your teen driver and the employees at Green Light Driving Academy take this responsibility very seriously. If parents and students use the guidelines and recommendations that have been established by Green light Driving Academy, your student’s driver education experience will be a pleasant and beneficial one.

Thank you,

Tom Pennington – President

Green Light Drivers Education, Inc.