A group of Charles County Public Schools students spent part of their summer break at the district’s administration building this week, but not for typical summer work — they were there to take the state’s learner’s permit exam as part of a new grant-funded effort to bring driver’s education back into the school system.
Students, most from Thomas Stone High School, gathered at the Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building on July 24 to sit for the exam. Those who passed can now head to any Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration branch to get their physical learner’s permit and begin behind-the-wheel training.
The program traces back to a grant application CCPS submitted last fall through the Maryland State Department of Education’s Driver’s Education in Public High Schools Grant Program, a new statewide initiative offering a total of $2 million to school systems this year, with priority given to high schools where more than 40% of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Karen Coles, community school coordinator at Thomas Stone High School, brought the grant opportunity to the attention of CCPS’s Title I and Community Schools staff, who pursued the funding on behalf of the district. CCPS is working with the Maryland Department of Transportation to run the program locally and has partnered with the College of Southern Maryland and Greenlight Driving School to deliver the actual driver education instruction.
“The grant places a strong emphasis on increasing access and equity for special student populations,” said Arin Bonner, CCPS director of Title I and Community Schools. This inaugural year of the program is open to students at Henry E. Lackey, Thomas Stone and Westlake high schools, with families working alongside a school staff member to complete enrollment paperwork and register for both the permit exam and driver education classes.
Amanda Austin brought her niece, rising senior Aminah Adams, to Friday’s test after Adams found out about the program herself. “She was the one who found out about it,” Austin said, noting that the free program solved a real obstacle for a family weighing the cost and scheduling demands of private driving lessons. “She’s always had drive; always been self-motivated,” Austin said of her niece, adding that earning a license fits Adams’s independent personality.
The renewed push for in-school driver’s education comes against a backdrop of declining teen driving rates nationally. A 2023 Washington Post analysis found that only 25% of 16-year-olds held a driver’s license in 2021, down from 46% in 1983, with a similar decline among 18-year-olds — 59% licensed in 2022 compared with 80% in the early 1980s — citing Federal Highway Administration data.
CCPS eliminated its driver’s education program in the late 1990s, part of a wave of cuts to school-based driver’s ed programs across Maryland and the country during that era as districts weighed the cost of maintaining vehicles, instructors and liability coverage against other budget priorities. Superintendent Maria V. Navarro told students gathered for Friday’s test that removing the program had consequences that outlasted the initial cost savings. “When we took driver’s ed out of public schools, it created inequities in allowing every single kid to learn how to drive,” Navarro said, adding that learning to drive young remains an important step toward independence as students move into adulthood.
Cheryl Hammond, manager of the Charles County MVA office, echoed that framing. “This is the next step in life,” she said. “It gets you to a job, it gets you to college, it gets you to that next step.”
Under Maryland law, new drivers must complete at least 30 hours of classroom instruction and six hours of behind-the-wheel training before they can test for a provisional license. During the school year, eligible students in the program will be able to take the learner’s permit exam after school or during a designated activity period rather than needing to arrange outside testing.
Some students who took Friday’s exam said the practical benefits were front of mind. “I need to get my license,” said Jaylen Tolliver, an incoming junior at Thomas Stone. “I need to get from Point A to Point B. I want to get a job and I need to be able to drive to get one.” Aidyn Newman, an incoming senior in the district’s Virtual Academy, said she saw the program as a low-barrier way to start. “Driving is something I knew I would need to learn,” she said. “This seemed like a way to start.”
More information on obtaining a Maryland driver’s license is available through the MVA’s guide for teens and new drivers at mva.maryland.gov.
