Cascade Valley Driving School keeps Yakima families in the loop

Cascade Valley Driving School runs teen classroom and behind-the-wheel programs out of Yakima. Dana Herrera's team of six instructors covers the valley and the smaller towns around it. The school was never short on students. It was short on time for the same phone calls.

Parents wanted a running count of classroom minutes, day driving, and night driving. Instructors were logging hours in a binder. The front desk was reading that binder back over the phone every afternoon.

"Parents used to call us at 4 p.m. asking how many hours were left. Now they open the app, see the record, and we stay on the road," says Herrera.

What changed

Cascade Valley moved enrollment, hour tracking, and parent accounts onto DriversEdPro. Students get a parent code at signup. Families link once and see the same record the school keeps: remaining hours, upcoming drives, quiz scores, and balances.

Instructors log each lesson from their phone at the end of the drive. Night minutes sit in their own bucket, which matters for Washington teen programs. When a student is close to completion, the record shows it before anyone has to hunt through paper.

In daily use

• Parent accounts for hours, grades, and payments
• Drive logs with day and night splits
• Automatic reminders before classroom and behind-the-wheel lessons
• Guest payment links when a relative covers tuition

The school still answers the phone. It just answers fewer of the same questions. Herrera says the team spends that time on scheduling and instruction instead of reading hour totals out loud.