You should be thrilled to know that any plane you will learn to fly in typically has full maintenance records for the entire life of the plane, including who did the work, their FAA certificate number, and all of the paperwork for any parts that were involved in the repair.

The shortcut is to ask the mechanic to come for a test flight after repairs. The place I learned to fly was owned by a mechanic, and the daughter ran the flight school. Given that the daughter might be test flying the mechanic's work, I trusted him to keep his planes in good shape.