Dozens of teenagers from villages around the state come to Anchorage through school-sponsored programs to take driver’s ed.
Talya Robart, a 16-year-old from Tatitlek, practices her driving skills with Voyage School driver education instructor Victor Shen on Oct. 9 in Anchorage. The Chugach School District's Voyage School allows students from primarily rural communities across the state to spend two weeks at a time focusing on a particular interest, such as driver's education, culinary arts, and emergency medicine. Robart passed her DMV driving test earlier in the day and got her license.
Robart had spent the last two weeks learning to navigate the streets of Anchorage under the gentle tutelage of her driver’s ed teacher through a residential program offered byTogether with a handful of other teens from Whittier and Tatitlek, she had reckoned with roundabouts, merged onto highways, navigated lane changes and massive, slow-moving RVs.
During two-week terms, students can sign up to stay in dorms on the South Anchorage campus of what students refer to as “Voyage School” while intensively studying everything from snow science to culinary arts. A life skills class teaches budgeting, bank accounts, establishing credit and applying for financial aid and scholarships. An emergency medicine certification allows high schoolers to earn their first 80 hours toward becoming an Emergency Medical Technician.
Driver’s education fits squarely within the school’s goal of preparing students for life after high school. There’s no DMV and not much opportunity for a formal driver’s education in many communities, she said. And private driver’s ed in Anchorage can cost hundreds of dollars. Voyage School is not the only place rural students can go for driver’s education: The Lower Yukon School District also offers driver’s ed classes — including a driving simulator — atFreshly licensed, Robart pulled out of the Voyage School parking lot and cruised through a tucked-away neighborhood, eventually turning onto O’Malley Road. Shen narrated quietly as she drove.
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