BURLINGTON, N.C. — The owner of an Alamance County truck driving school that shut down abruptly shared her story.
Pamela Day is one of the first black women to open a truck driving school in North Carolina but in February her business hit a bump in the road.
You may remember that some students at Cross-Country Truck Driving Training School contacted us shocked to find out the school had suddenly closed its doors.
Monday, she spoke with WFMY News 2's Itinease McMiller about what led to the school's closure.
Day said she did notify her truck-driving school students before shutting down, contrary to what one student told us.
She shared text messages sent to students regarding the closure the day before they were supposed to report to class.
Day's truck driving school was forced to shut down and padlocked after four years of operation.
"The first year was absolutely awesome," Day said. "It kept growing every week. Sometimes we would get between 75-80 students. We were doing well."
Day said trouble rolled In at the Burlington site in 2022 when one of her testers turned in a fraudulent test.
"I fired him that same day because there is no way you can put someone behind an 80-thousand-pound vehicle and not see if they have the skills," Day said.
She said she even notified the state about the issues. Then a few months later she said she fired another employee.
Day said that the employee went to the state saying she had something to do with the fraudulent test. Which Day Denys.
But the North Carolina Department of Transportation still opened up an investigation regarding her third-party testing license.
Day tried to appeal but a petition from the state shows her motions were dismissed.
Day lost her license to test in July.
"If you can't test we lost a lot of revenue. When we did outside tests we were able to test other people other than our students. The financial loss got worse and worse," Day said. "I was not able to pay staff."
Day said staff began to leave and she went from 80 students to just 9. She couldn't make payments and ended up racking up a bill of $76,000 for her lease.
She ended up losing the building.
Leaving her students with nowhere to go.
"I've got nothing but God left in my life to see what he's going to do with me," Day said. "All of them I'm sorry if I could change it I would change it a zillion times."
Day said she does plan to give her students a full refund when she gets the money.