D.A. Dorsey Technical College Dismissal Lawyer

D.A. Dorsey Technical College in Miami is operated by Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

A career programme, and a framework nobody explains

This college does not report a nursing programme to the Board of Nursing, so the pass-rate analysis that dominates Florida student-defence writing does not apply here. What does apply is the procedural framework below, and it is the part students are never told about — because the statute everyone cites was written for a different kind of institution.

The Miami-Dade picture

Miami-Dade County Public Schools operates a large set of technical colleges. Dorsey does not report a nursing programme, so there is no pass-rate figure in play — but the district’s nursing results elsewhere show how much variation one board’s policies accommodate: Lindsey Hopkins 100% of 24, Miami Lakes 84.78% of 46, Robert Morgan 71.70% of 53. What that tells a Dorsey student is that district-wide policy is not what determines outcomes at any particular college, and that the college’s own conduct of the process is the thing to examine.

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 enrolment 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 labelled 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-centre 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 programmes. 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 programme committee and the board never votes. Where that happened there is a structural defect to raise that does not require relitigating the facts.

Review is by petition for writ of certiorari in the circuit court under Fla. R. App. P. 9.190(b)(3), within 30 days of rendition under Fla. R. App. P. 9.100(c)(1). The court asks whether due process was afforded, whether the essential requirements of law were observed and whether competent substantial evidence supported the decision — it does not reweigh evidence, so the record has to be built inside the board process.

Where a case is filed

Miami is in Miami-Dade County, which puts a federal claim in the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division. Certiorari review of the school board’s decision lies in the circuit court for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit.

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 characterisation, 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 certiorari window from rendition.

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

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:

Common questions about D.A. Dorsey Technical College cases

Does the nursing pass-rate analysis apply here?

No — this college does not report a nursing programme to the Board of Nursing. What applies is the procedural framework: Fla. Stat. section 1006.60 does not reach district technical colleges, so the Fourteenth Amendment and the school board’s own rules govern.

Does Fla. Stat. 1006.60 apply to D.A. Dorsey Technical College?

No. That section applies to Florida College System institutions and state universities. This is a public school operated by Miami-Dade County Public Schools, so your protections come from the Fourteenth Amendment — see Castle v. Appalachian Technical College, an Eleventh Circuit case about a nursing student at a public technical college — and from the board’s own adopted rules.

Who has to make the final decision to expel me?

The district school board. Per Fla. Att’y Gen. Op. 2001-05 a board may delegate the evidentiary hearing to a hearing officer, but the final expulsion decision must be made by the board and cannot be delegated. These removals are often handled inside the college with no board vote, which is a concrete defect worth raising.

How long do I have to challenge the decision?

Thirty days from rendition, by petition for writ of certiorari in the circuit court under Fla. R. App. P. 9.190(b)(3) and 9.100(c)(1). The court reviews due process, the essential requirements of law and whether competent substantial evidence supported the decision — it does not reweigh the evidence.