Agawam Auto School

Summary: Rip off. Overpriced plus many hidden add on fees — under staffed a classroom portion is terrible and the staff and owner are rude and cocky. A new place opened down the street. I haven’t tried it but HAS to be better. Glad there is a choice now! I will not go back and warn others. In asking around I have had other parents tell me the same but they had no other option than to deal with this horrendous place.
Price: hundreds more than others plus you’ll have add on of:
–the DE certificate plus they charge a $ 15 handling fee for it!
— the parent class will gauge you another $ 20 which they don’t reveal until you walk in that night (many parents were complaining of this as they sat down on my night!)
— $ 150 to take the license exam with them ($ 50 at DMV)
Classroom: it’s the older owner telling the SAME personal stories over and over every week. There is no real learning going on. It’s just killing time to say it was done. The owner taunts that he was a teacher and is fantastic. Unless you want a senior citizen droning on about irrelevant old stories, this is complete waste of time. Other schools at least do hands on changing a tire, etc.
On roads: the scheduling is a nightmare. They are understaffed and unorganized. No one contacted me to start the on roads. I finally called them a month after the classroom ended. After 3 months, only 2 lessons and 2 cancellations 24hrs prior! The worst. And you will have different instructors every time. No continuity.
Staff/​service– they don’t believe in customer service. They’ve been the only game in town and operate that way. They are arrogant, never wrong and plain rude. Oh, and they only answer the phone a few hours a day IF you are lucky. Many times they didn’t answer even during the published hours to call. To top it off, they are very unorganized and will often ask you to call back to follow up in things they need to do/​schedule.
Save yourself hundreds and try another place. Trust me– it can’t be any worse than this place!