For years, our industry has struggled with one simple but critical challenge: there’s no single, reliable way to find and connect with every automotive, diesel, and collision program across the country. Information is scattered, outdated, and often impossible to verify—making it harder for shops and schools to work together.
At WrenchWay, we’ve been working to change that. Our goal is to build and maintain a living, nationwide directory that brings every high school and post-secondary school into one central, easy-to-use platform.
School Assist: More Than Just a Support Tool
That’s exactly what we’re building with School Assist.
When we first launched School Assist, the goal was simple: make it easier for schools and shops to work together. Instructors post requests for support and resources they need, and shops reach out if they can help. But School Assist is so much more than requests.
As we continue to expand and refine School Assist, our vision goes far beyond connecting schools and shops.
Here are a few of our key focus areas:
- Categorize Every School in the Country: For each school, we will identify if they offer dedicated automotive, diesel, or collision programs. Even if the school doesn’t have an official program, we want to know what related classes they do offer. We will also track student enrollment numbers.
- Maintain an Instructor Directory: Maintain an up-to-date directory of instructors and administrators so shops and dealerships always know the right people to contact at each school. With frequent turnover in both education and industry, keeping this information current is critical—it ensures faster communication, stronger relationships, and consistent support for programs and students.
- Collect School Wishlists: Empower schools to share their specific needs—whether it’s classroom speakers, shop tours, tool and part donations, job shadows, internships, or part-time jobs for students. By gathering these wishlists, we make it easier for industry partners to step in and provide meaningful support where it’s needed most.
- Connect Shops to Schools: Enable shops and dealerships to directly respond to school wishlists quickly and easily—fulfilling real needs in their community while building lasting partnerships with local programs.
- Refresh & Repeat: Continuously update program information, contacts, wishlists, and student opportunities—keeping the community accurate, relevant, and impactful.
And while there’s still plenty of work to do, we’ve already made major progress in organizing and verifying data that’s never existed in one place before.
Back-to-School 2025 Initiative: Progress & Impact
A few months ago, we launched our Back-to-School initiative to update the School Assist directory and encourage schools to share details about their programs and the types of support they need from industry partners.
Here are some of the highlights showing the progress we’ve made:
- We currently have over 3,200 schools using School Assist to connect with local shops and dealerships.
- Schools have posted nearly 2,000 new requests for support and resources—everything from guest speakers and shop tours to donations and advisory committee help.
- We added over 1,200 new verified school contacts since August 1st, ensuring school contacts are still correct and shops can reach the right people—while also expanding the overall network of instructors and programs available across the country.
Snap-on Steps Up to Support Schools
As a part of the Back-to-School 2025 initiative, we also partnered with Snap-on to give one lucky school program a Technician Tool Kit valued at $5,899. Congratulations to Lyman High School’s Automotive Program in Longwood, FL for being randomly selected!
And a big THANK YOU to Snap-on for partnering with us on this initiative and stepping up to support schools and future technicians.
A Look Into the Future
The Back-to-School initiative has been a huge success, but the work is never done. Throughout the year, we’re always adding new schools and connecting them with industry, but each fall, we’ll push hard to continue to refresh and expand the School Assist directory—verifying contacts, updating program details, and gathering new requests from schools across the country. By repeating this process annually, we ensure the data stays accurate and actionable—making it easier than ever for schools and shops to find and support one another.