Half the class expelled... help.

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Specializes in LPN.

Last year in November, half of the class including I were expelled from our college. We were 3 months away from graduating after being together in classes for 2 years... all because of a false accusation. I would have taken the loss if we were actually in the wrong but no, we were the ones who were wronged. I am here not for pity but for serious advice, I will try to make it as short as possible.

I have been an LPN since 2012, a little over 2 years ago I decided I wanted to go for my RN. I made nearly straight A's and I even did my part with the school and attended each open house for people interested in becoming students for our college. I was passionate and it was stressful (nursing school!) but I had so much fun thanks to my classmates and our teachers. It was roughly half a year before we got expelled when the school went downhill as our dean had quit and so did over half of our teachers. We would come to class and clinical just waiting and wondering if a teacher would show up to teach, (the clinicals that were missed were never made up). They changed the way the testing was to not be covering our source material. So on and so forth.

There was a big chain hospital that our school did clinicals at. They required us to have done these little quizzes that ask about hand-washing, fire safety, and how to be polite to patients. We completed them half a year before we got expelled and gave them to our teacher (who was the dean at the time and later quit half into our class period which hurt us in the end because we could not get a hold of her). It was 4 months after that in which our recent dean asked for them again over the phone while we were in clinical (we could hear him screaming at our teacher over the phone who was 40 yrs old and pregnant with previous miscarriage). I faxed our saved copies to the email provided, it turns out they came out distorted and they believed them to be fake. The big hospital chain's IT told me they delete records every 90 days... so we literally had no actual proof we did these quizzes. We got in trouble and were told we were on suspension and that we would be held up with a panel of a handful of faculty to discuss our fates. The panel never happened, the dean ended up calling us in one by one with our pre-printed expulsion papers and even after I cried to him and pleaded and begged to him that we did not make these up he didn't care. In fact his emotions and posture were scary and so negative... he nearly threw his chair across the room. NO COMPASSION from a NURSE who is in charge of FUTURE NURSES... not a great example. He didn't even have a teller to record information for some of us... So here I am with unaccredited classes even though they are A's and over 30,000$ of debt on me because of false accusations...

I cannot explain to you all how heart-broken and soulless I feel every day of my life. I have cried so many times because a man decided to hold me back from my dreams. I absolutely was ecstatic to have been able to hone my skills as an RN in a hospital setting. I even wanted to be NP one day... but it is impossible for me now as I have a large loan over my head. What can I do?? Should I seek legal advice? Thank you for listening to my story and for your time..

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Geeze, I don't even know what to say...but I'm sure people will start chiming in any second. So sorry this happened to you. This situation is highly unusual.

One question, which I know others will want to know is, was this a For-Profit school? Was it even accredited? I can't imagine this type of scenario would happen at a state school.

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Specializes in LPN.
4 minutes ago, Mergirlc said:

Geeze, I don't even know what to say...but I'm sure people will start chiming in any second. So sorry this happened to you. This situation is highly unusual.

One question, which I know others will want to know is, was this a For-Profit school? Was it even accredited? I can't imagine this type of scenario would happen at a state school.

For-profit and it was accredited when I applied over 2 years ago, but since they have lost their accreditation (I have heard rumors that the nursing board is very unhappy with the state of the school too)... so I can't even find a school who will take my credits.

I am just lost... I had to see a psychiatrist and therapist about the state of my mental health that the expulsion has done to me. The monthly bills are too much I feel like I'm drowning. An old co-worker of mine suggested I go to the courthouse and request in to see a judge about the matter (I'm still very young so legal stuff is kinda new to me, I don't have parents I can fall back on for help so this is sort of why I decided to post here).

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Specializes in NICU.
43 minutes ago, LoveGuineaPigs said:

For-profit and it was accredited when I applied over 2 years ago, but since they have lost their accreditation (I have heard rumors that the nursing board is very unhappy with the state of the school too)... so I can't even find a school who will take my credits.

Unfortunately, that is very common. Many state community colleges and universities will not accept credits from for-profit schools.

58 minutes ago, Mergirlc said:

One question, which I know others will want to know is, was this a For-Profit school? Was it even accredited? I can't imagine this type of scenario would happen at a state school.

As I read the post, I was thinking the same thing that it has to be a for-profit school.

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Specializes in LPN.

Is there any hope for salvation? The others who were expelled gave up... hell, one was a single mom with a little girl and the other had no nursing history prior. We all cried and tried to fight tooth and nail to get back in, but nothing worked out in the end. Me on the other hand I'm still trying to make something out of it. ?

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Specializes in NICU.

If this was a state university, you could have taken your grievance outside the School of Nursing to the Provost of the university. Since this is a private educational company, you might take it to the corporate level beyond your individual school. I doubt you will get anywhere, but it is your only recourse.

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Specializes in LPN.
1 minute ago, NICU Guy said:

If this was a state university, you could have taken your grievance outside the School of Nursing to the Provost of the university. Since this is a private educational company, you might take it to the corporate level beyond your individual school. I doubt you will get anywhere, but it is your only recourse.

The school was not a state university. I wrote appeal letters to the dean, the vice president, president and the State Council of Higher Education for my state and they were all denied. There was proof of no investigation preformed during the process as well.

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Specializes in Critical Care and ED.

I really feel for you. What an awful situation to be in. All I can suggest is that you and all your classmates seek the help of a lawyer for a group action. They would have to reimburse you collectively if they lost. You have to have a united front rather than working as individuals.

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Lawyer up. It shouldn't be that hard for a legal team to find someone who can attest to the stupidity of saying something is fake just because it is distorted (it is generally not the goal of counterfeiters to make something look distorted, I wouldn't think?). Beyond that you would need to make the case that the school had other problems and decided to just make up a reason to expel people when they couldn't deliver the services they were hired to render. With the number of faculty and staff they have also abused it might not be impossible to find people who can testify to state of operations at the school/business.

Hopefully someone will take your case in light of the fact that there is a group of you.

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2 minutes ago, JKL33 said:

It shouldn't be that hard for a legal team to find someone who can attest to the stupidity of saying something is fake just because it is distorted (it is generally not the goal of counterfeiters to make something look distorted, I wouldn't think?).

Besides, wouldn't the original emails that they have in their possession be time-stamped?

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An old co-worker of mine suggested I go to the courthouse and request in to see a judge about the matter (I'm still very young so legal stuff is kinda new to me, I don't have parents I can fall back on for help so this is sort of why I decided to post here).

That's not how it works. You would need to file a lawsuit. Only then will you get a court date and chance to present your case.

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9 hours ago, LoveGuineaPigs said:

The school was not a state university. I wrote appeal letters to the dean, the vice president, president and the State Council of Higher Education for my state and they were all denied. There was proof of no investigation preformed during the process as well.

The only other thing I might suggest is contacting your loan company to see if they can make your payments income-based or extend the length of your loan to make the payments smaller. I know there is no way to not repay the loan, but at least if you're working, they may work w/ you to bring the payment down some so it's a bit less of a burden. Keep in mind, you'll still be accruing interest regardless, but it could be some relief until you find a solution to going back to school or getting a lawyer to perhaps help you.

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