Joshua Leonard, who participated in COA’s driver’s education program, gets into the vehicle he shares with his mother. (Photo by Brendan O’Brien)
As a teenager living in Milwaukee’s inner city without a driver’s license, Joshua Leonard felt isolated.
Good paying, part-time jobs were too far away and there were very few positive social opportunities in his Capitol Heights neighborhood. He also was competing with his four siblings for rides from his mother, a single parent.
“I wanted to get away, to get out,” the 18-year-old high school senior recalled. “I didn’t want to be in the house bored any longer.”
Leonard was desperate to get his driver’s license. But without the money for classes at one of the many private driving schools, which typically charge more than $300, he was at a dead end, until he found COA Youth & Family Centers. COA offers a scholarship-based driver’s education program.
“It meant a lot to me because … I don’t have $300. That’s a lot of money for just driver’s education,” he said.
COA’s driver’s education program is offered at the Goldin Center. (Photo by Courtney Perry)
Each year, COA’s scholarship-based program, funded by Milwaukee Public Schools, serves hundreds of high school students like Leonard who do not have the means to pay for private driver’s education classes but look forward to earning their license.
“Think about the rites of passage for a young person,” said Kari Nervig, the youth development coordinator at COA. “Having that freedom to drive is a big one and it opens so many doors.”
MPS does not offer school-day driver’s education and a program through the district’s recreation department runs each student about $150 and has a limited number of slots available, according to Nervig.
About a decade ago, students participating in COA’s three-day youth leadership institute camp proposed a scholarship-based driver’s education program to alleviate the barriers they were facing in getting their licenses. A pilot program was set up with a three-year grant from the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to test out the proposal.
“It’s has grown and thrived ever since,” said Thomas Schneider, COA’s executive director.
One of the keys to the program, Schneider said, is that students must pay in sweat equity. The students who developed the program set strict eligibility criteria to obtain the scholarship. Participants must maintain a 2.3 grade point average, participate in 25 hours of documented community service and attend an after-school program.
“This was really thought out by this group of youth because they knew they had to demonstrate that they were deserving of someone picking up a $300 tab,” Nervig said.
COA now partners with MPS and Easy Method Driving School to bring driving education to schools and neighborhood centers throughout the city. The program consists of classroom and road instruction and takes about a semester to complete, Nervig said.
During the last four years, 1,050 Milwaukee teenagers have earned scholarships to attend the driver’s education program, according to Nervig.
“This is a program that requires a lot of momentum, because youth are skeptical and they are not so sure if this is a real thing,” she said. “So we have found that our greatest marketing tool is the youth who have gone through it.”
In addition to removing social, economic and educational barriers, the program has addressed the problem of teenagers getting snarled in the court system at an early age with driving violations, Nervig said.
“This is a real benefit to the youth and the community,” Schneider said. “The inability to afford driver’s (education) creates isolation. This program breaks down that isolation and provides opportunity to youth that can last a lifetime.”
The benefits of the program reach beyond the teenagers that it serves, according to Nervig. Parents say having their teenager able to drive significantly reduces time and transportation hurdles that the family faces.
For Leonard, having a driver’s license has meant more responsibility around the house, such as running errands and chauffeuring his siblings around, along with holding down a decent paying part-time job at a Culver’s, five miles from his house.
“He helps out picking up the kids and running to the store, just different things and it helps,” said his mother Denise Leonard. “That’s the good part of it.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the cost of driver’s ed through the Milwaukee Recreation Department and did not fully portray the role of MPS in the program.
I have a teen (19 years old) that graduated from HS and missed out on learning how to drive.
He wants to get away and go places, he is so bored and the drivers education fee is unaffordable to him. He says he has been reading the drivers education bookets and his stepdad has been taking him out on the city streets in his mom’s car. But knowing him, I feel this is not the best way to learn how to drive and he may be missing the basics of drivers education. He needs the proper road instructions with the drivers education.
What community neighborhood centers can I give him for drivers education and road instructions? He’s very determine to learn and find a car.
Dear Ms. Bennett,
Unfortunately this program through MPS and COA is only available to youth currently attending High School. It’s great that your son was able to get booklets to study and learn the rules of the road. he clearly is motivated! Because he is over 18, he can go to any DMV to take the written driving test. I would suggest contacting the DMV for more information. I am not aware of any agency offering programs for adults other than license recovery programs.
Sincerely,
Kari Nervig
Thank you for your story highlighting the MPS/COA Incentive Based Driver Ed program. I appreciate the publicity for the program. It was heart warming to see Josh in the story as I have known him since he was in 1st grade. It’s a reminder of how blessed I’ve been to see him grow into a young man.
I did want to note some key information is missing or incorrect:
1.)MPS is the primary funder of this program for the majority of it’s history (7 years). I don’t think the importance of the support of MPS is clear in this piece, and they should be recognized for their leveraging of the dollars to support this important program.
2.The MPS REC classes cost $150 ,a price they have worked hard to keep low.
3. We also wanted to ensure that we were clear in expressing how this program reduces isolation for youth and families. “Insulation” may have just been a typo.
Thank you again for the positive story about Milwaukee youth!