Judge blocks tuition refund plan for Stone Academy students
A Superior Court judge issued an order blocking a state program that lawyers for former Stone Academy nursing students said would provide tuition reimbursements only to students who agree not to sue over its abrupt closing last year.
Lawyers for the students who sought the order argued that the state was offering students, many of whom are in financial difficulty, relatively small, but speedy tuition reimbursements on the condition that they drop class action suits that could win more substantial damages for possible misconduct by school administrators and state regulators that contributed to the closing.
“At issue is the State’s demand that hundreds of former Stone Academy Students sign a waiver of rights against the State in exchange for payment of just a small fraction of the damages they incurred because of the bad conduct of both the Stone Academy Defendants and the Connecticut’s Office of Higher Education and Department of Public Health,” the motion for the emergency injunction says.
The purpose of the state’s tuition reimbursement program is “to extinguish any further state exposure for the considerable hardship and damages it caused to students after the closing of Stone Academy”, according to one of the lawyers representing the students, Timothy Cowan of the firm Hurwitz, Sagarin, Slossberg Knuff.
Judge Barbara Bellis’ temporary injunction is good for 30 days.
“The State of Connecticut is enjoined from issuing refunds to former students of Stone Academy under the Partial Tuition Reimbursement Form,” she wrote and she scheduled a hearing on the issue next month.
Former Stone Academy students have filed two class actions over the school closing.
The first, against the school owners, claims the school essentially defrauded the students by promising a medical services education when the owners knew it was in dire financial shape and couldn’t adequately provide accredited courses and clinical experience.
The second suit names the state and claims medical and educational regulators illegally invalidated portions of student academic records or have threatened to deny them licenses in the months following the school’s abrupt closure early in 2023.
The state Attorney General’s office, which is defending the suit against the state, opposed the temporary injunction.
It argued that it is being sued in federal court and should not be subject to an order issued by a state court. Alternatively, it argued that the refund program does not require students to waive rights to sue that are not required under state law.
Bellis ruled last year that students are likely to prevail in their suit against the school in state court and ordered its principal owners to produce $5 million to guarantee payment of a verdict.
Bellis said in her decision that evidence produced in court so far suggests that, “prior to its sudden closing, Stone Academy’s shortcomings included their failure to provide in person, suitable clinics at approved off-site locations that were required for certification, and their failure to provide qualified faculty for all courses.”
Stone Academy students get early court win; judge orders owners to post $5M against possible verdict
Those shortcomings combined with others, the judge wrote, resulted in a substandard pass rate for students taking nursing licensing examinations. She said the school closed abruptly when the state began an audit to determine the extent of the problems — even though the school agreed to the audit and the state Office of Higher Education authorized its continued operation.
“Not surprisingly, as a result of these actions by Stone Academy, their students have encountered problems in obtaining their certifications,” Bellis wrote.
The former nursing students, many of whom are single parents, ran up tens of thousands of dollars in debt in the hope of obtaining licenses. The students are asking, among other things, to be compensated for career interruptions and reputational damage they attribute to the state.
The suit against the state asserts that, after the school closed, state regulators acted illegally by retroactively invalidating academic course credits accumulated by students during a period when Stone was operating as a state approved and licensed private occupational school.
The students argue in the suit against the state that the unilateral state decisions invalidating credits and threatening licenses of those who had just passed a national examination violated their due process rights by denying them opportunities to participate in the review process or appeal outcomes.
The abrupt and messy closing of Stone Academy has been a disaster for thousands of students.
The state relicensed the school for five years in November 2021, but within months the owners were in talks with state regulators, who had become concerned over academic performance.
Among other things, the passage rate for students taking the national licensing examination for practical nurses had slipped below 80%, a standard set in state law.
A year later, the Office of Higher Education notified the school that its license was in jeopardy over its failure to meet state standards. The state agreed to keep the license in place through March 2023 if the school paid for an audit to identify academic weaknesses.
The suit says Stone Academy reneged on its offer to pay for the audit and told state regulators it was closing in February.