The Pleasant Valley School Board approved switching the drivers education program to an online platform during their meeting Thursday night.

The high school will now use the Shield Driving School Online Instruction program. As for behind the wheel drivers education, that is not offered in the school district.

“Most school districts do not offer that anymore,” Superintendent James Konrad said.

For the online program, Konrad said there are four class periods for drivers education and the teacher for that period will monitor the students. In all, there are 360 students registered to take drivers education at some point this school year.

The cost of the online program is $23,400, and will be covered through a grant from St. Luke’s University Health Network. The district’s contract with St. Luke’s in 2020 included grant money to be paid to the district each year.

Before the move to an online program, drivers education classes were taught by physical education teacher Greg Bowman, and English teacher Thomas Murphy, who was charged with a DUI in March.

“This was a course that was going to be taught by a teacher, but due to internal movements, the priority for that teacher, who is certified in English, was to teach the English classes and obviously that being a required high-level course we wanted to make sure that we made the right adjustments,” Konrad said regarding Murphy.

Bowman is not available to teach the course, Konrad said. There was a vacancy in the physical education department and he is teaching more classes now.