First off, I hold a California teaching credential and a masters degree in education. Due to our current budget cuts of five billion dollars in education in California and high lay-offs of teachers, as well as school closures, I was prompted to seek alternative income and looked into commercial driving.
My friend and I attended SAGE truck driving school in Cheyenne, WY just recently and felt completely mislead by the information on the website and what was provided by the administration and people at the school. The website states:
"SAGE Truck Driving Schools have provided top quality, comprehensive professional truck driver training to thousands of students across the country for almost 20 years. We offer much more than simply tractor trailer training to get your CDL license or pass the CDL test. The CDL training program at SAGE schools provides thorough driver training and trucking job placement assistance for the trucking industry. Every student receives extensive truck driving instruction and maximum truck driving time behind the wheel. SAGE has become a trusted name in commercial vehicle training programs. The truck driving training program delivers fast, focused results and high-quality truck driving jobs for graduates!
Many of SAGE's driver training programs meet or exceed Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI) standards, which have been nationally recognized as among the best trucking school programs across the country by many carriers. SAGE commercial driver training offers in-depth, hands on truck driving experience sought by employers. SAGE's successful truck driving job placement assistance for students and graduates of SAGE truck driver schools sets a high standard across the country for excellence.
If you are interested in a career as a professional truck driver, or you have trucking industry experience and want to improve or refresh your tractor-trailer driving skills, you have come to the right place -- a truck driver training school where the emphasis is on you."
Upon arriving and as soon as the first day of attendance, we began to realize that this particular location was not living up to the stated reputation of the company. The curriculum was very old and out-dated. Many of the things that were promised did not live up to the expectations. We were told that we would be able to re-check our answers during the pre-test of one of the quizzes with 100 questions and then take the test. We weren't allowed to do so and they recorded our scores from the pre-test because they didn't want to bother to allow us the time to do so. I decided to leave at the end of the first week but my friend stayed and that is where more of the discrepancies began to show up.
Here is a minimum list of things that my friend encountered:
- Trucks not always available for training
- Scheduled a truck inspection review, than cancelled due to no equipment available…found out that all of the equipment had been used for rodeo-related, non-- -school activities.
- would not allow a student to post-pone the driving test when student adamantly stated that they did not feel ready
- student requested to be scheduled as late in the week as possible and was told that she would probably be scheduled some time on a Friday. They ended up scheduling her on Tuesday at 9 AM, the earliest possible time there was available.
- after failing test, the student requested to be scheduled later the following week. School again insisted on scheduling her three days later on Friday.
- On Thursday before, student still did not feel ready and asked to be re-scheduled the following week. They denied and she failed the test on Friday.
- Student requested a test time the following week, after failing, because she is paying for her own housing. School said there was no time available until the week after the next week. Another student (who lives locally) offered to give her time slot, which was during the nest week, to the student. School denied this request and said she would have to wait until the week after that week.
- Student requested to measure the distance between the cones on 'the range' and was denied.
- The so-called one-one-one time on the range with a private instructor, often consisted of one instructor outside of the truck, while two students in their own truck, practicing with the instructor looking on outside of either truck, sometimes the instructor stayed inside a tent and read a paper.
The school promised that they would see to it that we passed and tout themselves as being different than the truck driver training mills that are out there that push the students to unrealistic extremes and when they fail, still take their money.
We felt totally ill-prepared by this institution that claims to put the student first, providing total quality education.
One other thing, the facility is in a warehouse...not a big deal but there wasn't even soap in the bathroom for the students to wash their hands, not to mention that they were filthy. The trucks are very beat up and are sometimes not available due to mechanical breakdown.
Their tuition is approximately $4800, which does not include housing. The curriculum is very beat up and lacking a lot in the information needed to learn to drive the test. I passed all of the California state teaching tests the first time I took them and three of the required tests for trucking took me two to three tries until I passed all six or seven of them. The school promised that they would have us totally prepared for these tests. I felt totally un-prepared.
My friend went back home to Michigan, without receiving her license, because the school was very uncooperative with her and her needs and she could not afford to continue to pay at the rates of $100 per hour for private lessons, as well as housing. She was totally offended when they asked the instructor to let her know that they did not want her hanging around the school/office, as well as the range, where she actually helped one of the instructor/trainers shovel rocks to smooth out the driving area.
We believe that this school completely misrespresented what was on their website, mislead us by their conversations and did not provide the type of service that was needed to succeed at passing the tests required to become a commercial truck driver.
Please help. I paid approximately $1000 to get out there, $500 for my housing, which the person I rented a room from would not refund the rest of my money after I left with 18 days left. Even though she had a weekly rate of $137.50 per week. I had been there 11 days and wasn't due to leave until the 15th of June. I left on May 28.
Is there anything that we can do? I would like the $1117.90 tuition that I was charged, housing of $500 and travel expense of $1000 reimbursed, if possible. My friend would also like her expenses reimbursed--tuition $4800 approx., travel expenses (?) and housing of $500.
My friend and I attended SAGE truck driving school in Cheyenne, WY just recently and felt completely mislead by the information on the website and what was provided by the administration and people at the school. The website states:
"SAGE Truck Driving Schools have provided top quality, comprehensive professional truck driver training to thousands of students across the country for almost 20 years. We offer much more than simply tractor trailer training to get your CDL license or pass the CDL test. The CDL training program at SAGE schools provides thorough driver training and trucking job placement assistance for the trucking industry. Every student receives extensive truck driving instruction and maximum truck driving time behind the wheel. SAGE has become a trusted name in commercial vehicle training programs. The truck driving training program delivers fast, focused results and high-quality truck driving jobs for graduates!
Many of SAGE's driver training programs meet or exceed Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI) standards, which have been nationally recognized as among the best trucking school programs across the country by many carriers. SAGE commercial driver training offers in-depth, hands on truck driving experience sought by employers. SAGE's successful truck driving job placement assistance for students and graduates of SAGE truck driver schools sets a high standard across the country for excellence.
If you are interested in a career as a professional truck driver, or you have trucking industry experience and want to improve or refresh your tractor-trailer driving skills, you have come to the right place -- a truck driver training school where the emphasis is on you."
Upon arriving and as soon as the first day of attendance, we began to realize that this particular location was not living up to the stated reputation of the company. The curriculum was very old and out-dated. Many of the things that were promised did not live up to the expectations. We were told that we would be able to re-check our answers during the pre-test of one of the quizzes with 100 questions and then take the test. We weren't allowed to do so and they recorded our scores from the pre-test because they didn't want to bother to allow us the time to do so. I decided to leave at the end of the first week but my friend stayed and that is where more of the discrepancies began to show up.
Here is a minimum list of things that my friend encountered:
- Trucks not always available for training
- Scheduled a truck inspection review, than cancelled due to no equipment available…found out that all of the equipment had been used for rodeo-related, non-- -school activities.
- would not allow a student to post-pone the driving test when student adamantly stated that they did not feel ready
- student requested to be scheduled as late in the week as possible and was told that she would probably be scheduled some time on a Friday. They ended up scheduling her on Tuesday at 9 AM, the earliest possible time there was available.
- after failing test, the student requested to be scheduled later the following week. School again insisted on scheduling her three days later on Friday.
- On Thursday before, student still did not feel ready and asked to be re-scheduled the following week. They denied and she failed the test on Friday.
- Student requested a test time the following week, after failing, because she is paying for her own housing. School said there was no time available until the week after the next week. Another student (who lives locally) offered to give her time slot, which was during the nest week, to the student. School denied this request and said she would have to wait until the week after that week.
- Student requested to measure the distance between the cones on 'the range' and was denied.
- The so-called one-one-one time on the range with a private instructor, often consisted of one instructor outside of the truck, while two students in their own truck, practicing with the instructor looking on outside of either truck, sometimes the instructor stayed inside a tent and read a paper.
The school promised that they would see to it that we passed and tout themselves as being different than the truck driver training mills that are out there that push the students to unrealistic extremes and when they fail, still take their money.
We felt totally ill-prepared by this institution that claims to put the student first, providing total quality education.
One other thing, the facility is in a warehouse...not a big deal but there wasn't even soap in the bathroom for the students to wash their hands, not to mention that they were filthy. The trucks are very beat up and are sometimes not available due to mechanical breakdown.
Their tuition is approximately $4800, which does not include housing. The curriculum is very beat up and lacking a lot in the information needed to learn to drive the test. I passed all of the California state teaching tests the first time I took them and three of the required tests for trucking took me two to three tries until I passed all six or seven of them. The school promised that they would have us totally prepared for these tests. I felt totally un-prepared.
My friend went back home to Michigan, without receiving her license, because the school was very uncooperative with her and her needs and she could not afford to continue to pay at the rates of $100 per hour for private lessons, as well as housing. She was totally offended when they asked the instructor to let her know that they did not want her hanging around the school/office, as well as the range, where she actually helped one of the instructor/trainers shovel rocks to smooth out the driving area.
We believe that this school completely misrespresented what was on their website, mislead us by their conversations and did not provide the type of service that was needed to succeed at passing the tests required to become a commercial truck driver.
Please help. I paid approximately $1000 to get out there, $500 for my housing, which the person I rented a room from would not refund the rest of my money after I left with 18 days left. Even though she had a weekly rate of $137.50 per week. I had been there 11 days and wasn't due to leave until the 15th of June. I left on May 28.
Is there anything that we can do? I would like the $1117.90 tuition that I was charged, housing of $500 and travel expense of $1000 reimbursed, if possible. My friend would also like her expenses reimbursed--tuition $4800 approx., travel expenses (?) and housing of $500.
Last edited:
