More students are getting behind the wheel of trucks as dozens of high schools across the U.S. offer classes to help them obtain their CDLs.
The driving force behind the trucking classes is the desire to expand career opportunities for high schoolers and bolster the professional driving field, teachers told FreightWaves. The American Trucking Associations reports that the industry will need to recruit 1.2 million drivers over the next decade to meet demand, though some in the industry dispute whether there is a truck driver shortage.
David Kastiro, 21, took Patterson High School’s truck driving class — an elective course open to seniors at the California school — before going to college for one year. Kastiro had dreamed of being a cardiologist, but that plan was shattered when the financial strain of the coronavirus pandemic left his parents without jobs, causing them to be evicted from their home.
“My family was broken after COVID,” he said.
He moved to Texas with his dad but returned to California to get his CDL, building on the knowledge he learned in his high school classroom. That decision enabled him to provide stable housing for him and his parents. Trucking provided a financial lifeline that would have otherwise not been available to him, he said.
It’s Lindsey Trent’s hope that more high schoolers will choose the professional driving career path, which she said provides excellent job opportunities across multiple fields, such as agriculture, construction and energy.
Trent, president and co-founder of the Next Generation in Trucking Association, works with high schools across the country that want to offer CDL classes. Since the nonprofit trade association’s founding in 2021, Trent said the organization has met with some 300 high schools interested in launching a program. About 50 schools across 15 states now offer classes.
The nonprofit’s goal is to build up the reputation of trucking and make it a first-choice job for students and just as competitive as other career and technical education classes, like welding, said Trent, who serves as a liaison between schools and the industry.
“This generation, they want a job that is more than just making a dollar and helping people make money,” she said. “They want something that makes an impact on the community and they know being a professional driver is an essential job, and if we don’t have drivers, we don’t have medicine, we don’t have food in restaurants or grocery stores.”
Ricardo Jimenez, 22, took Patterson’s truck driving class as an elective at the urging of a friend, unaware that the choice would send him on a new career path. It was Patterson educator and Next Generation in Trucking Association co-founder Dave Dein’s passion that sparked Jimenez’s own enthusiasm about the industry.
“The best things come when you’re not looking for them,” Jimenez said.
Jimenez is studying management and business economics at the University of California, Merced. He started his own trucking company, Fastboy Logistics, where he has two trucks and two drivers, so he could be a part-time driver while obtaining his degree.
“It’s such an undervalued and under-looked-at career,” he said.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that about 240,000 openings for driving jobs are projected each year on average over the next decade. Many of these jobs are expected to be open due to retiring drivers. About 73% of the nation’s freight by weight is moved by trucks.
Charlie Dansie, an educator at Connell High School in Washington, has taught high-demand truck driving classes for the past three years and said he poses a simple question at the start of the year: Can students name an item not transported by a truck?
“I’ve never had a student name one commodity that’s not transported by a truck,” he said of the exercise, which underscores the importance of trucking.
In his class, students study and work to receive their commercial learner permits when they turn 18 before registering for dual-enrollment and getting behind the wheel at Walla Walla Community College to earn their CDL.
Students were thrilled by the class, which helps them enter the workforce soon after graduating, Dansie said.
Dansie, who has taught for more than two decades, said he’s observed a shifting attitude about postsecondary education. Now, students are realizing the opportunities of going into a trade or similar industry, like trucking, he said.
It’s that changing attitude that led Parke Heritage High School in Rockville, Indiana, to offer the program. Principal Bruce Patton said about half of his students don’t go to college and that educators always seek new ways to enhance student skill sets ahead of graduation. Trucking classes were a perfect avenue for preparing students for post-high school life and a career, he said.
“Not all kids are going to go to college, and not all kids have to go to college,” he said.