There was a time, decades ago in the 1960s and ’70s, when high schools in Fairfield County offered their students in-school driver”™s education courses.
Today, few offer their own programs and the widespread preference is either to have students attend local driving schools on their own or to partner with the company and have them operate independently within the high school.
Tom Ferraro, co-owner of Tom”™s Auto Driving School Inc. in the Riverside neighborhood of Greenwich, can remember only two or three competitors when his father first started teaching driver”™s education in regional schools and from an off-site location in 1951.
“The school system didn”™t want to take the liability on as far as the insurance of renting a car or having a guy in car with a teenager,” Ferraro said. “The kids would come to his school and do the driving.”
Hardly any schools today offer the 30 hours of class time or the additional eight hours of behind-the-wheel instructor-guided practice that are jointly required by the state for drivers obtaining their license through commercial driving schools, he said.
Similarly Jeff Valko, owner of the Driving School of Fairfield Inc., can recall only a few competitors when he first opened his school in 1987. There are now a total of five Fairfield driving schools including his own, two of which are chains ”” a relatively new development in an industry largely dominated by small family businesses with one or two schools.
Of particular note is The Next Street, a Watertown-based company that since its founding in 2009 has opened driving schools at a blazing pace in more than 70 locations throughout the state, the majority of which are run by the company within high schools.
Of the more than 220 commercial driving school locations listed by the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles, Next Street schools account for 58 of them, making them the largest driving school company in the state by a wide margin.
When asked if the chain of schools is putting long-established driving schools out business, Next Street Marketing Coordinator Christine Rodriguez said flatly, “yes.”
She, like Valko and Ferraro, touts the quality of her company”™s staff as superior, but notes the scale of the network of Next Street schools allows for greater flexibility for students”™ schedules versus less flexible schools with one or two locations.
The company just recently opened a new location in New Britain, Rodriguez said, and has three more opening this summer: Manchester in July, Stamford in August and Enfield in September.
The company also has its sights set on expanding into New York, but has yet to solidify plans, she said.
“There is a lot of competition,” said Kathy Pallman, office manager at the Driving School of Fairfield. “Next Street has gotten into the majority of schools in Connecticut and the school bus companies. They have really overpowered all the driving schools that are privately owned.”
She has worked in Valko”™s driving school for the last 12 years after a 19-year career as a manager in a Monroe branch of the Laidlaw school bus company, where Next Street has also penetrated the market quickly, she said.
Founded by the Dufour family, Next Street is one of two companies owned by the family in addition to All-Star Transportation, a school bus operation that shuttles more than 35,000 students throughout Litchfield, New Haven and upper Fairfield counties each school day.
Valko and Ferraro are also competing with the chain Fresh Green Light LLC, a multistate business operating 27 schools spread among Illinois, New York and Connecticut.
Founded in Rye, N.Y., in 2009 by current Weston resident Steve Mochel and his wife Laura Shuler, the chain has expanded quickly with locally owned franchises as far as Chicago, though the company’s greatest presence is in Fairfield County where it operates 10 schools.
Neither Valko nor Ferraro”™s schools operate within regional high schools and are limited to their respective single locations.
“We tried to get into the schools and we couldn”™t,” said Pallman. “We don”™t know why.”
While some might suggest the writing is on the wall for the small businesses, neither Valko nor Ferraro seem particularly concerned.
“I have had people come in to this town and tell me if I didn”™t sell them my school I would be put out of by business by them. I”™m still here and I don”™t know where they ended up,” said Ferraro. “If you have a franchise you are just banging out hours. They are not doing what we do.”
He estimates his schools teach about 400 to 500 students a year, a similar number to that of Valko”™s Fairfield school with both touting their reputations as the driving force behind their continued customer base.
“The phone calls are rolling in,” said Ferraro.
Linda Muccio, Ferraro”™s sister and business partner, said their school, which has at least one instructor who has been teaching for 40 years, often teaches the children and even grandchildren of former students.
Likewise, Valko said his decades-old business has also been supported by word-of-mouth referrals.
“We encourage parents and kids to come down to the school here to and review our curriculum,” said Keith Pannella, one of Valko”™s driving instructors. “We try to get on a first-name basis. We like the one-on-one, that”™s a big sell for us.”
While lengthy local history has benefited both Valko and Ferraro”™s companies, scale is on Next Streets”™ side.
The company is able to outprice its competitors and with their growth trajectory such as it is, it will remain to be seen how much longer the locally run schools will be able to maintain.
While the competition may be steep, both Ferraro and Valko seem confident about their company”™s future, with Ferraro and Muccia foreseeing their family”™s next generation possibly taking over the business.
“This is a mom-and-pop operation that was handed down to the second generation and hopefully we will hand it down to our kids behind us,” Ferraro said.
Editor’s Note: This article has been amended from print and previous digital versions to cite Fresh Green Light’s local ownership.
