Troubles at Miami-Jacobs Career College nursing program
September 2006: College granted conditional approval of practical nursing program.
September 2007: Ohio Board of Nursing holds school's first site visit and finds unqualified teachers and other "deficiencies."
March 2008: Miami-Jacobs signs consent agreement with the nursing board after the school had unqualified program administrator.
November 2008: Nursing board site visit finds other education standards not being met.
March 2009: School agrees to amend consent agreement and acknowledges it did not maintain credential files for 40 instructors.
October-November 2009: School fails to submit pre-survey site visit report; board postpones visit until December.
December 2009: Site visit finds more deficiencies.
March 2010: State moves to revoke its conditional approval of the nursing program, Miami-Jacobs requests an appeal hearing.
July 2010: Another site visit finds unqualified staff and curriculum problems, state moves again to revoke approval, and college requests appeal hearing.
October 2010: State nursing officials hear evidence about Miami-Jacobs nursing program in weeklong hearing.
November 2010: Nursing official with "mixed feelings" recommends the college get a one-year extension to clean up its program.
January 2011: Board withdraws approval of college nursing program.
COLUMBUS — The Ohio Board of Nursing’s decision to withdraw approval for Miami-Jacobs Career College’s troubled nursing program is the latest blow after a tough year for the college and its health programs.
In September, school officials withdrew their appeal of a decision by the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care resulting in loss of accreditation of its respiratory care program.
In November, an arbitrator awarded five of seven former surgery technology students $20,000 to $60,000 to settle lawsuits filed in 2008.
Those lawsuits alleged that Miami-Jacobs claimed its surgery technology program was accredited when it was not.
The college voluntarily stopped enrolling new students in the respiratory care and nursing programs last spring.
College officials have declined to say how many students remain in the current programs, but the school reported to the federal government more than 180 were enrolled in medical programs in the 2008-2009 school year.
On Thursday, the college acknowledged it had laid off employees to “improve efficiencies” while “responding to economic realities and adjusting staffing to enrollment,” said Ned Snyder, campus director.
“We are a vibrant organization serving hundreds of students and employers in the Dayton area,” he said.
Snyder replaced Darlene Waite, a 27-year employee of the school, as president this fall.
Waite was reassigned to a post with Miami-Jacobs’ parent company, Delta Career Education Corporation, which bought the 150-year-old school in 2003.
The college’s nursing program had multiple opportunities since 2008 to correct deficiencies, said Lisa Emrich, an Ohio Board of Nursing programs manager.
“The deficiencies continued, and in March 2010 and July 2010 the board proposed to withdraw the approval from the program that resulted in the hearing,” Emrich said.
Board investigators found that the college’s nursing program used unqualified instructors and administrators, and did not meet curriculum standards. “For example, there was no consistent progression policy for students going through the program,” Emrich said.
In addition, the college did not provide accurate information to the board or notify students of the board’s survey visit, “so students did not have an opportunity to meet with surveyors,” Emrich said.
College officials, in a statement, said the board “clearly disregarded all the changes and improvements put in place by Miami-Jacobs in the last year.”
The college plans to seek an order Monday from Franklin County Common Pleas Court to set aside or stay the board’s ruling.
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