My time at CR England's CDL School & 9 month experience / review

How's it going everyone. I wanted to make a thread about my current ongoing experience with CR England's CDL school in Cedar Hill, Tx and my soon to be experience as a C.R.E. driver. I've posted on the forum a few times, but for those that don't know, I'm a newbie to the industry and just looker for a better path in my life. Was separated from the Army in 2012 with a Gen w/Honorable discharge and been trying to find a good career ever since. Was wanting to be a truck driver when I got out but I had to be 23 in most places.. Which brings me here.

I turned 23 two weeks ago and I decided to call to some CDL schools around San Antonio and this one was the only one that would accept me after all of my previous employment. Yup.. it's CR England.. But I'm not complaining. Anything is better than nothing right now. So here we go.. I'll try to update this as much as possible during my experience with C.R.E. so people can get a idea of what it will be like to work here from a entry level students perspective, instead of hearing it from people that haven't done any time with this company...

Might be late sometimes updating but I'll do my best!

Let's get started

 

1 DAY BEFORE SCHOOL

I spoke to a recruiter on May 22nd, 3 days after my birthday and got approval to go to their school. Had a ticket to Waxahachie, Tx on May 31st, 1 day before school.

Left SA at about 5:40am with some other guy going to the school and we ended up in Waxahachie at around 11:30 I think.

Checked in to the motel, got a roommate with another guy from San Antonio but was coming from a different city, and then unloaded our personal stuff in the room to get ready for the next day..

By the way, they'll put you in a motel called Dallas Inn & Suites.. Its not bad, for a company paid motel and provided transportation.. no complaining here (Been through worse..) and definately not any bed bugs like supposedly the other C.R.E. schools have, but I will tell you that if you aren't used to the humid Texas weather, be ready for these #### bugs to be flying outside your door just waiting for the slightest crack to make you a professional bug killer... lol

On to day 1...

 

DAY 1 OF CR ENGLAND CDL School

So here we go.. day 1 of CR. England's personal CDL school. It's called Premier Truck Driving School by the way.. Owned by C.R.E.

Well we all wake up by 5:30 - 5:45 am each morning to catch the bus by 6 am inside of the motel parking lot.. about 50 - 60 people it seemed like, just waiting in the motel parking lot which looks like it's owned by C.R.E. as well... C.R.E. parking signs, C.R.E. trucks around and whatnot...

Well we get to the school at around 6:30 am in Cedar Hills, Tx and get in processed to the school. There was 37 people that started in my class. As soon as we got to the class we met our instructor. Stern fella, seemed slightly intimidating but he's actually a really cool and humble guy when you get to hear him out. Not giving his name out.. but if you've been here these past few years you probably know who he is...

Well after we meet him we started doing our paperwork and getting our stuff together that we needed to bring in order to be fully accepted into the school.... We lost 4 people in 10 minutes. Just like that, it was bad communication from their recruiters from the start and they weren't told to bring certain paperwork (work visas, citizenship forms, green card reciepts etc..) and had to be sent back home until they can get those papers together.. so if you're coming here, make sure to be prepared and talk to your recruiter to make sure what you need to bring. If that doesn't work I'd call the actual school because they would know everything you need to be fully accepted.

Other than that the rest of us was good to go. We gave em our SS cards and IDs and waited for the contract lady to get there. When she was there she had us sign our company agreement, school agreement, and contracts. The vets were told to wait to sign as we had different contracts obligations.. 6 months, not 9. So I waited, but signed the rest of the stuff.

After that they had the vets give her our DD214'S so she could get our paperwork together. While waiting the medical personnel came and did our physicals and drug test. Physical consisted of a agility tesy, strength test, trailer entrance and exit test, eye test, height and weight, blood pressure, hearing, huevo check for us guys, and of course the drug test. Boom.. more people. Half the day, and 27 people in the class left. But later on we got some more out of nowhere? I don't know if they were late or not, but wasn't my problem.

After most of us went to complete the tests, we came back to the class and got a course lecture from our instructor as well as some paperwork and our Texas CDL training books & guides. We got to studying right away as our instructor told us too and after an hour or so the med people came back in to pull 4 people our of the class to do something.. anyone guess what? The good ol hair follicle test. Yup, it's real, for anyone guessing. But doesn't happen to all of us which I was slightly suprised but also not because ####... $200 a pop for a hair drug test, I would only get a few people too lol

Well all goes well. Days over, time to go home. As soon as class is done, we head out and walk out to our student transport bus and small van for extra students. Back to the motel, or as the 'I' as me and my roomate call it.. (Was Dallas Inn & Suites, but didnt have enough money for the nn in 'Inn' lol).. Well we get there, and they give us an option to go to Walmart that day to get food, supplies, etc..

Got our food, came to the I. Got ready for day 2.

 

Thanks for the input

 

Wasn't being sarcastic Vilhiem. Not too much I can say lol.. But I do know that there are 4 or 5 different Premier schools around the country so hopefully all aren't like that

I'll find out next week once we start driving these bad boys. Funny thing.. We were outside on Tuesday and I saw the backing range.. then I saw about 8 people come out of one truck after they did the full backing procedure. Talk about one on one learning huh