iTECH Immokalee Technical College Dismissal Lawyer

Immokalee Technical College — iTECH — is operated by Collier County Public Schools, and the practical-nursing program at its Immokalee campus finished 2025 below the statutory floor.

75.00% of 16 first-time candidates

The practical-nursing program passed 75.00% of 16 first-time candidates against a 77.17% floor — twelve passes and four failures. Sixteen candidates is a small cohort and that should be said plainly: one additional pass would have cleared the line. The figure supports the narrow point that the program was under a statutory floor, not a claim that it is failing.

What it does support is the incentive argument. A program sitting on the line has a direct institutional interest in not entering a candidate whose result it predicts will be a failure — and a dismissal grounded in a prediction rather than in a published progression rule is a dismissal worth contesting.

The Collier comparison

Collier County Public Schools also runs Lorenzo Walker Technical College in Naples, which passed 81.82% of 44 the same year — comfortably above the floor on nearly three times the cohort. One school board, one set of adopted policies, two very different results.

The statute that protects state college students does not cover you

Fla. Stat. section 1006.60 — five business days’ advance written notice of the charges, access to inculpatory and exculpatory information, an impartial hearing officer — applies by its own terms to Florida College System institutions and state universities. A district technical college is neither: it is a public school operated by a district school board under sections 1001.44 and 1003.02. Sections 1006.61, 1006.62 and 1002.21 are limited the same way. So a student here gets none of the statutory protections a student at the state college down the road gets.

What you have instead is constitutional, and the Eleventh Circuit has addressed this exact setting. Castle v. Appalachian Technical College, 631 F.3d 1194 (11th Cir. 2011) — a nursing student at a public technical college — proceeded on the footing that the student held a property interest in continued enrollment that could not be taken without due process, and recorded that denying a pre-suspension hearing is itself a violation. Wells v. Columbus Technical College, 510 F. App’x 893 (11th Cir. 2013), applied Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), to a technical college suspension. Goss requires notice and an opportunity to respond before the sanction takes effect.

If the college calls the dismissal academic, Board of Curators v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78 (1978), removes the hearing requirement — but only where the institution evaluated the student carefully and deliberately and kept them informed of the deficiency and of the risk of dismissal. A competency-based dismissal is usually labeled academic for that reason, which is why the label is worth contesting.

The board has to decide, and often has not

Because no statute writes a conduct code for adult career-center students — section 1006.07(2) is written for elementary and middle and high schools — the governing document is the district school board’s own rules, adopted under section 1001.41(2) and section 1003.02(1)(c), which expressly covers adult and career education programs. Get the board policy, not only the college handbook.

And the decisive procedural point: per Fla. Att’y Gen. Op. 2001-05, a board may delegate the evidentiary hearing to a qualified hearing officer, but the final expulsion decision must be made by the board itself and cannot be delegated. In practice these removals are frequently handled inside the college by a director or a program committee and the board never votes. Where that happened there is a structural defect to raise that does not require relitigating the facts.

A school board’s final expulsion order is reviewed by appeal to a Florida District Court of Appeal under Fla. Stat. section 120.68. The notice of appeal is due to the board’s clerk within 30 days of rendition, and rendition happens only when the written order is filed with that clerk. The appellate court asks whether the board’s findings rest on competent substantial evidence in the hearing record, whether a material procedural error impaired the fairness of the proceeding, and whether the board misread the law — it does not reweigh evidence, so the record has to be built inside the board process.

Where a case is filed

Immokalee is in Collier County, which puts a federal claim in the Middle District of Florida, Fort Myers Division. Review of a final expulsion order goes to the Florida District Court of Appeal for the appellate district where the school board has its headquarters, or where a party lives.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

• Obtain the district school board policy as well as the college handbook, and hold the college to whichever is more demanding.
• Establish whether the school board itself decided the expulsion, or whether the college did it alone.
• Contest the academic-versus-disciplinary characterization, because it sets how much process was owed.
• Test the Horowitz minimum: was the deficiency identified in writing, and was the student warned that dismissal was possible?
• Preserve the 30-day appeal window, which opens when the board’s written order is filed with its clerk.

The full framework, and every Florida district technical college nursing program with its 2025 result, is on the Florida district technical college page. Program-level pass rates are tabulated on the Florida nursing program pass-rate page.

iTECH’s two campuses and their nursing programs

Immokalee Technical College (iTECH) teaches practical nursing at two sites: the main campus at 508 North 9th Street in Immokalee and iTECH Glades, an extension campus at 1030 Industrial Drive in Moore Haven that opened in January 2022. The college’s About iTECH Glades page calls it the first Florida technical college run by a school board outside its own county, seeded by a five-year agreement with Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity. The Immokalee campus also offers Professional Nursing (LPN to RN, 900 hours) and Patient Care Technician (600 hours); Glades adds Nursing Assistant (Long-Term Care), according to the 2026-2027 Catalog and Handbook (updated June 2026, pages 7 and 41-64).

The Florida Board of Nursing’s 2025 NCLEX-PN report lists the two practical nursing sites under separate codes: Immokalee Technical College, where 12 of 16 first-time candidates passed (75.00%), and iTECH Glades, where 4 of 13 passed (30.77%).

Nursing applicants sit for the TEAS, which may be attempted no more than three times a year, write an assessment, and meet with iTECH’s director of Health Science (pages 27 and 43). They also need Level 2 background screening and a drug test under an iTECH policy that the catalog says is “available upon request” (page 44).

The grade, clinical, and attendance rules iTECH nursing students face

iTECH nursing students must keep an 80 percent average and attend at least 90 percent of scheduled class and clinical time, and no completion certificate or NCLEX registration comes until they finish the Virtual ATI Review (pages 44 and 46).

• Falling short in any section of a course, classroom or clinical, means probation, and mastery must be shown before the next instruction unit ends or the student may be withdrawn. A “critical incident” suggesting serious lapses in judgment, practice, or ethics can lead to permanent separation from any program (page 15).
• Six scheduled class days in a row absent without notice means withdrawal on the seventh, with no refund. Only religious holidays and jury duty count as excused, and health science students are not eligible for a leave of absence (pages 15-16).
• A student caught cheating meets with staff within the next three scheduled class days and may be dropped and kept out of every iTECH program for one year. A second offense of holding tests, answer keys, or another student’s work means an immediate drop with no return to any iTECH program (pages 13-14).
• Conduct problems climb a four-step ladder: an instructor’s documented warning, an advisor’s letter, an administrator’s contract, then possible dismissal. A funding agency may be told from the second step on (page 12).

Returning to an iTECH health program, and where complaints go

The Health Science Director must approve any return to an iTECH health program, and a third admission means starting the program over (page 29). A second readmission also requires a meeting with that director and the iTECH Director. Practical nursing, patient care, and nursing assistant students must reapply within one year to keep earlier credit, and a returning practical nursing student who already finished pharmacology must score at least 90 percent on a drug-calculation exam or restart at that unit.

iTECH’s complaint ladder goes from the instructor to a workforce education advisor or financial representative, then to a Grievance Committee requested in writing through the advisor, then to the Director, and last, in writing, to the district’s Director of Post-Secondary Programs (page 10). Students get no filing deadline; the college promises to answer requests within 24 business hours. The committee includes the instructor, an advisor, an unrelated administrator, and at least two unrelated instructors. The catalog also points students to the state Division of Florida Colleges, which handles complaints about Florida College System schools (pages 9-10).

Discipline, harassment reports, and accommodations under Collier rules

iTECH publishes no suspension or involuntary withdrawal procedure of its own; that catalog section only refers students to the district’s Code of Student Conduct, and the weapons section still cites the 2022-2023 edition (pages 24 and 26). The current Code sends expulsions to the School Board on the principal’s and Superintendent’s recommendation.

The Director or a designee receives and investigates harassment complaints, and sexual misconduct complaints fall under Board Policy 2266, handled by the district’s Title IX Coordinator, who also serves as Chief Human Resources Officer (pages 2 and 8). A written appeal of a Title IX decision is due within 10 days, and the district allows up to 90 days for the whole case.

To request accommodations, a student completes the district’s accommodations request form and sends it to Specialized Student Services (catalog page 31 and the Student Services page). The catalog relies on Administrative Procedure 2260.01A1, which calls for a fresh request each semester, notice at least 72 hours before a test accommodation, and a written complaint within 90 calendar days after a student learns of an alleged violation.

Other Florida technical and career institutions

Every school writes its own dismissal, appeal and conduct rules, and the filing deadlines are rarely the same from one campus to the next. These pages set out the procedure at other Florida technical and career institutions:

• J-Tech Jones Technical Institute
• Lake Technical College Dismissal
• Lee Professional Institute
• Lindsey Hopkins Technical College Dismissal
• Lively Technical College Dismissal
• Lorenzo Walker Technical College Dismissal

Common questions about iTECH Immokalee Technical College cases

What was iTECH Immokalee’s pass rate?

75.00% of 16 first-time practical-nursing candidates in 2025 — twelve passes and four failures — against a 77.17% floor.

Is a rate based on 16 candidates meaningful?

Only modestly, and it should be said plainly: one more pass would have cleared the floor. It supports the point that the program was below a statutory minimum, not that it is failing.

How did Collier’s other technical college do?

Lorenzo Walker Technical College in Naples passed 81.82% of 44 the same year, above the floor on nearly three times the cohort — under the same school board and policies.

Which court covers Immokalee?

The Middle District of Florida, Fort Myers Division for a federal claim; review of a final expulsion order goes to the Florida District Court of Appeal for the appellate district where the school board has its headquarters, or where a party lives.

Can a practical nursing student at iTECH take a leave of absence?

No. The iTECH 2026-2027 Catalog and Handbook says health science students are not eligible for a leave of absence, and a student absent without notice for six consecutive scheduled class days is withdrawn on the seventh day, with no refund.

Do iTECH Glades students in Moore Haven follow the same rules as students in Immokalee?

The published documents point that way. A single 2026-2027 catalog covers both campuses, and its Glades practical nursing section repeats the Immokalee requirements: an 80 percent average, attendance of at least 90 percent, and completion of the Virtual ATI Review before the certificate is issued.