Chris Carpenter of Englewood wrote the nursing board in September after his daughter Marissa attended the school for a year, spent $13,000 and withdrew after repeated problems. “I didn’t feel they were getting the training they needed,” Carpenter’s letter said. “And hanging over (Marissa’s) head is the money she owes for the loans, for classes that she can’t do anything with.”
Christina Ferguson, a Springboro single mother, complained she was kicked out after failing a test the college didn’t prepare her for. “They should not be allowed to get away with this,” Ferguson wrote.
Passage rates of the National Council Licensure Examination are 20 percentage points or more below the state average for Miami-Jacobs students, according to state data.
Not all the testimony is negative. Miami-Jacobs submitted 16 letters from students, faculty and employers of its nursing students in support of its appeal of the nursing board decision to revoke conditional approval of its practical nursing program.
The pro-Miami-Jacobs letters to Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Frye are filled with praise from current students like Sara L. Taylor, a single mom who wrote the judge she had poured “blood, sweat and tears” into the program that taught her “a great deal.” Its closure would leave “a gaping hole where my hard work, my dreams and my children’s future lay crumpled on the ground.”
Reports from former students and even Miami Valley Hospital and Kettering Health Network that Miami-Jacobs graduates are not typically considered for jobs didn’t faze Diana Asher. “I’m not worried a bit. I made what I thought was the right decision for me,” she wrote.
Two employers of Miami-Jacobs graduates did submit letters on behalf of the school. Seth Thomas of Thomas Medical Staffing and Patricia A. Vail of Carriage Inn nursing home both praised the college students’ abilities. Called to elaborate, Vail declined to comment about her letter.
Employees of Thomas Medical Staffing were surprised Seth Thomas wrote a letter on company letter head dated Jan. 24 since he sold the business in December. In an e-mail a company vice president questioned the letter’s authenticity because it lacked a signature and said the company didn’t want to be involved with the issue.
Also in its request for a stay, lawyers for Miami-Jacobs said the college has “taken the last nine months to review every aspect of its nursing program,” hired an outside consultant to review all policies, procedures and faculty and is reviewing every part of its curriculum.
Eighty-two students remain in the practical nursing program and all are expected to graduate by September. “Without a stay,” the statement said, “any students currently enrolled in Miami-Jacobs’ nursing program would be ineligible to sit for the state licensure examination.”
Since Miami-Jacobs gained conditional approval in 2006, the nursing board has found that the school repeatedly used unqualified administrators and instructors, did not meet curriculum standards and misrepresented facts.
Still, hearing examiner Ronda Shamansky said she made a “reluctant recommendation” in November to give the school another year to clean up the program. Board members disagreed with that recommendation and instead voted Jan. 21 to close the program immediately. Days later that decision was set aside pending appeal.
It was a court decision that frustrated state Rep. Clayton Luckie who has fought hard for the students who he thinks have been wronged. “I respect the court’s decision,” he said. “But you shouldn’t get a forth and fifth chance. This is about accountability and patient care.”
Luckie said Miami-Jacobs lawyers requested public records from his office about his involvement in the case and he said he is concerned the school will retaliate against the more than 100 students who “blew the whistle” on the school.
One of them, Gevena Milbry of Trotwood, who graduated in September and passed her nursing license exam in November, said the school briefly kicked her out after she complained about problems first to administrators and then to the nursing board.
“What they were teaching was not enough to pass the test,” Milbry said. “We presented that to (administrators) and they got mad.”
The same day the Ohio Board of Nursing voted to revoke Miami-Jacobs’ conditional approval to teach practical nursing the school withdrew its request for authorization by the Ohio Board of Regents.
Miami-Jacobs remains licensed by the state and accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. The school has branches in Troy, Springboro, Columbus and near Cincinnati. It is owned by Delta Career Education Corporation, which operates for-profit colleges with 37 campuses and 16,000 students, according to its website.
The college requested state authorization of 11 programs in 2009 so its students would be eligible for a state grant program that was later cut from the budget. The state had granted provisional approval, but required the school to “enhance the rigor and breadth of its general education curriculum to be consistent with state standards.”
John Ware, executive director of the Ohio Board of Career Colleges and Schools, the agency that licenses for-profit colleges, said withdrawal of the authorization request means less state oversight. “I’m not surprised,” Ware said, because the grant money is no longer available and “it cost them money.”
Miami-Jacobs students are not eligible for state grants, but do get federal student aid. During the 2008-09 school year, 84 percent of students received financial aid for a total of $3.5 million. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 11.7 percent of students defaulted on their loans in 2008, down from more than 20 percent the two years prior.
Luckie has drafted a bill to increase state oversight of for-profit colleges that would require schools to refund tuition if a program closes. Other parts of the bill mirror what federal regulators are pushing to rein in the for-profit industry and help protect students from aggressive recruiting, false promises and student loans for degrees that they can’t earn enough in the workforce to repay.
The industry is fighting the new federal regulations, but Luckie thinks he might have support for his state version. “I think the bad players will fight it,” he said. “Good players shouldn’t have any problem because it is a fair bill.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2342 or cmagan@DaytonDailyN
ews.com.
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