New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Stone Academy students weigh next steps as the school closes
With Stone Academy and its three Connecticut campuses scheduled to close in the coming weeks, the school’s 845 students must now assess how to continue their education.
The school — which has campuses in East Hartford, Waterbury and West Haven — has told officials with the Connecticut Office of Higher Education that it will close as a result of compliance issues associated with its academic program. Stone Academy can remain open through March 27, according to Office of Higher Education, which has regulatory oversight over Connecticut’s private career schools.
But the timing of the closing could be altered by another state agency, the Connecticut Board of Examiners for Nursing. Members of that board met Wednesday to discuss the timing of Stone Academy’s closing and a spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Public Health, which oversees the Board of Examiners for Nursing, was not immediately available for comment on the outcome of that hearing.
Until the campuses actually close, the most immediate action that students can take is to transfer to another school, according to Timothy Larson, executive director of the Office of Higher Education. Once the Stone Academy actually closes, students can then apply for admission to other schools in the state, Larson said
Three other schools in the state offer practical nursing programs: Lincoln Technical Institute, Griffin Hospital School of Allied Health Sciences as well as Porter and Chester Institute, he said. Six other school in the state offer medical assistant programs.
“We would hope to transfer as many as possible,” Larson said. “But before we do that, we need to do an audit on each and every one of those files. We need to understand the impact on individual records; once that has been done, we can determine a path forward for the students.”
Before an audit can begin, he said, a determination must be made about whether Stone Academy officials will pay for the audit or whether the Office of Higher Education will pay for it. Once that determination is made, Larson said an independent, third-party auditor will be selected.
“We want to make sure we give proper care to those who have been left in lurch,” he said. “We want to work aggressively to get through this. I don’t think this is a six-month long process, but it’s going to take some time to make sure we get it right.”
Larson said his office is asking Stone Academy students to fill out a survey that will aid in the auditing of the school’s records.
Once the audit is completed, Larson said update transcripts will then be made available to students.
Students who have paid for their Stone Academy tuition with their own money may be eligible for a partial refund, which he said can be applied for online from the state’s Student Protection Account. For students who have been paying Stone Academy tuition using U.S. Department of Education loans, there is the possibility of having those loans discharged.