Hillsborough County Public Schools already runs an established driver education program with a DMV-approved range at each high school. A simulator is not a replacement for any of that. It covers the hazards a range cannot safely stage.
Hillsborough County Public Schools is headquartered at 901 E. Kennedy Blvd in Tampa and reported approximately 171,553 non-charter students for 2025 to 2026. The county covers 1,266 square miles, which the district itself notes, and that spread matters for any program delivered across multiple campuses.
Hillsborough runs one of the more established driver education programs in the region. The district describes school-based and summer instruction combining classroom and behind-the-wheel training through DELAP-certified educators, and states that each high school has a DMV-approved driving range. Its program page lists State Farm, the Kiefer Foundation and the Teen Safe Driving Coalition as partners.
Source: district driver education program and district profile.
Please note: Academy Sim Racing does not currently have simulators installed in Florida school districts. The programs described here are services Academy offers and can deploy. Any reference to a district on this site describes an area we can serve, not an existing installation or partnership.
What Academy is, and is not. Academy Sim Racing supplies racing and driving simulators and runs staffed programs with them. We are not a licensed driving school and we do not employ state-certified driver education instructors. Nothing we provide counts toward Florida licensing requirements, the supervised driving hours a learner must complete, or any state-required driver education course. Districts should deliver those through their own certified staff or an appropriately licensed provider. What we offer is supplementary practice and hazard exposure alongside them.
Hillsborough is the district where we would be least likely to talk about filling a gap, because the program is already there. A district with a driving range at every high school and certified instructors does not need someone explaining why driver education matters.
What a simulator could add here is different. It is the hazard work that a driving range cannot safely stage: a car pulling out, a skid, a genuine emergency stop. A range teaches control in a controlled space. It cannot teach a student what an unexpected hazard feels like at speed.
This is also our home county. Academy is based at 1421 Massaro Blvd in Tampa, which makes Hillsborough the easiest district in Florida for us to serve and the cheapest to trial.
If you fund driver education through the Dori Slosberg Act. s.318.1215 lets a county add $5 to civil traffic penalties to support driver education, and requires that programs receiving those funds devote at least 30 percent of student instruction time to behind-the-wheel training. Simulator time is not behind-the-wheel time and cannot count toward that 30 percent. We would rather say so now than have it surface during an audit.
We bring simulators to a campus, run sessions through the day and remove everything afterwards. The simplest way for a district to trial the format.
Equipment on site for a defined period, such as a semester or a safety initiative, supported by our staff.
Where a district wants a permanent capability, that is a conversation rather than a catalog item. We are happy to have it.
Tell us the schools involved, rough student numbers and your timeframe. We will send program options and costs.