Students at now-closed Connecticut nursing school sue state officials, say they've made things worse

Source: Associated Press

Students at now-closed Connecticut nursing school sue state officials, say they’ve made things worse

BY SUSAN HAIGH
Updated 4:54 PM EST, December 26, 2023

Students at a for-profit nursing school in Connecticut that abruptly closed in February filed a federal class-action lawsuit against state officials on Tuesday, arguing their actions and defamatory statements have prevented the students from moving on with their training and careers.

“They’re literally stuck,” said attorney David A. Slossberg, who is part of a team of lawyers representing what could potentially be more than 1,200 former Stone Academy students.

The lawsuit, which focuses on the state’s conduct after the school’s closure, argues the students’ constitutional rights have been violated because they have been deprived of property rights to earned academic credits. After the school’s three campuses were shuttered, a state audit declared thousands of credit hours retroactively invalid, something Slossberg argues officials did not have the authority to do.

-snip-

In July, the state of Connecticut also sued the for-profit nursing school, accusing it of aggressively using marketing to recruit students, many of them Black and Hispanic women who took out loans and used their life savings to pay the more than $30,000 in tuition and other costs to become licensed practical nurses. But Attorney General William Tong said the school provided an inadequate education and left them ineligible to take licensing exams and obtain state nursing licenses.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/stone-academy-nursing-students-lawsuit-f3143f64ae9f5b2fe4639c0a7a8e178a