In Illinois, students between the ages of 15 and 17 looking to obtain a driver’s license must enroll in an accredited driver’s education course. Successful completion of this course is the required prerequisite to obtaining a driver’s license.
All public high schools in the Champaign-Urbana area but Uni — Unit 4 School District’s Central High School and Centennial High School and Unit 116 School District’s Urbana High School — offer a driver’s ed program. Uni is the only public high school that does not.
Uni Director and Principal Elizabeth Majerus says she doesn’t know why.
“I have no idea. We never have in the entire time I’ve been here,” says Majerus, who started teaching at Uni in 1999.
“But I think we had [a program] at one point, maybe. … If this is true, it was probably where every school [would] set up their thing and the state would regularize it and create certain rules and laws,” Majerus says. “It might have been more of a burden for smaller schools. Maybe, at that point, the program went by the wayside or something.”
Majerus says that everything she knows about a previous driver’s ed course at Uni is “purely speculation.”
According to the Uni Library’s digitized copies of Uni yearbooks from 1921 to 2010, the first mention of driver’s ed or a driver’s training class was in 1950.
From 1950 to 1994, most Uni yearbooks contained some information about a driver’s ed class previously offered at the school. In 1950 and 1951, a student left her car to the “Driver’s Training” class, and in 1956, the yearbook references a “driver’s training car” for class.
When it was offered, driver’s ed was mainly managed by the Athletic department. In 1957 and 1976, the same teacher that taught Physical Education taught driver’s ed; in 1978, Uni’s Athletic Director taught driver’s ed. Driver’s ed used to be offered in Room 202 in Kenney Gym, according to Uni’s website.
The last mention of any driver’s ed class in Uni’s digitized yearbooks was in 1994. According to the 1996 yearbook, the previous driver’s ed teacher left Uni in 1994.
In a poll uploaded to the Uni High Gargoyle’s Instagram account, 84% of respondents said they think Uni should offer a driver’s ed program for students.
Majerus says that she does not see the school adopting a driver’s ed program in the future.
“I highly doubt it,” says Majerus. “It would be low on our list of priorities. It would take a lot, and it’s really — I can’t imagine anybody being motivated to do it.”
Majerus says that all Uni students are permitted to take a driver’s ed course in their home district.
“You could go to Urbana, or Champaign, or Mahomet, wherever your school district is, you are allowed, as a student, to take driver’s ed there. And so you could take, for example, a summer class, if they offer a summer class,” she says.
Waiting lists for driver’s ed courses at public high schools tend to be long. According to legislation by the Illinois State Board of Education, schools have up to a year after enrollment to offer students the driver’s ed course.
Driving schools also tend to be more expensive in comparison to driver’s ed courses at public schools.
Driver’s ed courses at public high schools must not exceed more than $50 or $250 following a hearing, according to Illinois state law. At Unit 4 School District high schools, summer driver’s ed courses cost $50, and students must pay $200 to take behind-the-wheel at the school, for a total of $250.
At local driving schools, costs can range from $500 to $550 for 30 hours of driver’s ed, six hours of behind-the-wheel, and six hours of observation.
As a relatively smaller school, Uni may not have the resources necessary to provide a driver’s ed program to students.
However, with a cost of nearly $300 more, by offering a driver’s ed program, all Uni students would be more equipped to obtain driver’s licenses earlier in their high school careers.
