Really? I live across the street from an elementary school, and there is a long list of things you are not supposed to do in their field (which everyone including teachers do) but no prohibition about going there. Ditto for the parking lot. Cops actually encourage dog walking in the field to make sure there are lots of eyes.
In fact it is a lot more legitimate to be there when school is out than when school is in session, when you would probably need to be signed in.
Getting a learners permit can be done without any driving at all, since it just involves the written test.
I taught my daughter in a mostly empty shopping center parking lot. And just after she started, some clown came down her lane the wrong way.
I grew up in NYC, and when I lived there you were not allowed to drive until 17 even with a learner’s permit. Ditto with Nassau County. I think most people ignored it, but my father, being excessively legalistic, took me all the way to Suffolk County to practice which really cut down on my practice time. This despite the fact we lived in a pretty suburban part of Queens, and I could have easily driven up and down our street.
Yup. Or rather… Yup, but it probably varies by jurisdiction.
As I’ve mentioned many times, I work for a library. I’ve been told to call the police on any car that seems “abandoned” and when I’ve had to park in the lot in the middle of the night (or even once during the day) when the building is closed, I was greeted by a police officer when I was ready to leave.
That seems perfectly reasonable to keep people from abandoning stolen cars in your lot. I think I’d do that myself for the school lot - except it is small and right on the street, so it has never been a problem.
It was a county park before you got there, right?
I practiced by getting on the freeway and stepping on the gas. On day one. 
It’s my birthright. No one can deny me freeway access.
So, you learned to drive in a car park, like everyone else. 
I grew up in the country, so I learned to drive, well, on the roads. I’m guessing the OP is in a city. I suggest, as others have, a giant church parking lot on a weekday, or the parking lot of your nearest large sporting venue.
I learned in an industrial park on weekends. Huge empty parking lots as well as a few actual roads.
My situation is similar to Ms Boods. I got my learner’s permit in Iowa in 1976 and drove on local roads with my dad. Had driver’s ed in high school, passed that, and got my full license without a test.
When I moved to the UK I drove on my US license for about a year before taking the test. They had just introduced the written test but not the video game test. At that time the written was super easy. I took the driving test in my American car (Chevy Lumina Z34) which freaked out the examiner a bit I think. Passed first time without any lessons. I was not on any probationary period, and found a UK insurer that would honor my US no-claims information so got cheap insurance right away.
Hello, kferr, I hope you are well! I envy you the ease at which you got everything sorted! It’s changed quite a bit just in the last couple of years, both the test and the insurance rates.
I’ve got a full licence, but as with other new drivers, if I accumulate 6 penalty points in the next two years, I lose the licence and have to start over. Once I’m on my third year, insurance rates go down, and I can rack up 12 points like everyone else 
What’s really awesome is adhering rigorously to the Highway Code during lessons and the exam, while all around you people are driving every which way. I’d hoped I’d qualify for the licence after the first time I shouted helpful advice at a middle lane hog.
I took my test in my own car, too, but not my nice American-stylee Mini, which I had to sell when I left the States; I’ve got the same make and model now, except right-hand drive.
si_blakely – zing! Ha ha, so true, sadly.
I don’t think there any cemetaries near enough (with appropriate paving) for this to work for us.
I took my son to his high school parking lot on a Sunday. First day I did that, there was another car in the lot quite clearly doing the same thing :).
I like the cemetary idea for when we teach the lad to drive manual transmission (he’ll be inheriting my husband’s elderly manual Civic soonish). I can point out that he he screws up the driving badly enough, he’d be spending a LOT MORE TIME there.
When I learned (in PA in the 1970s), my dad also took me to a high school parking lot - which had things like zigzags and parking spaces painted right on one section of the lot, for that precise purpose. OK, I’m sure they were intended for driver’s ed classes at the school, but we were never confronted for using it off-hours.