Fred K. Marchman Technical College Dismissal Lawyer

Fred K. Marchman Technical College in New Port Richey is operated by the Pasco County School District.

A career program, and a framework nobody explains

This college has no practical or registered nursing program (its Patient Care Technician program includes nursing-assistant training), so the NCLEX pass-rate analysis that dominates Florida student-defense 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.

Two very different institutions in one town

New Port Richey has both this district technical college and a Pasco-Hernando State College campus. Pasco-Hernando is a Florida College System institution covered by Fla. Stat. section 1006.60; Marchman is run by the county school district and is not. Note too that Pasco County sits in the Tampa Division while Pasco-Hernando’s Hernando County campuses fall in the Ocala Division — so even the venue answers differ across town.

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

New Port Richey is in Pasco County, which puts a federal claim in the Middle District of Florida, Tampa 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.

Marchman’s two sites and its one health program

Marchman has a main campus at 7825 Campus Drive in New Port Richey and a second site in Dade City, and its only health program is Patient Care Technician. The Dade City site appears as 36727 Blanton Drive in the 2026-2027 Adult Student Handbook and as an “Instructional Service Center” at 36737 Blanton Road in the Program Catalog 2026-27. Both documents open from the college’s Official Student Documents page.

Patient Care Technician runs 600 clock hours, weekdays from 7:15 a.m. to 2:40 p.m., with up to 15 percent online. Applicants must be 18, hold a diploma or GED, pass a physical with a negative TB test or chest x-ray, complete Pasco County Schools fingerprinting, pass a drug test, and meet clinical vaccine requirements. Every applicant also interviews with an admissions committee, and a denied applicant may appeal to the Director by the deadline in the decision letter.

The program’s first-day letter says the drug screen comes in the first few weeks and that a medical marijuana card does not exempt anyone. Its clinical checklist requires proof of health insurance, or sign-up for school insurance, by the first day. The catalog lists six courses, starting with a 165-hour Nurse Assistant course, but the PCT instructional plan on the college’s Campus Plans and Reports page lists seven different courses and even carries a cosmetology services table.

Attendance, grades, and the 48-hour appeal window

Marchman’s two 2026-2027 documents set different attendance rules. The handbook (page 5) sends a notice when absences reach 3 percent of total program hours, requires a counselor meeting and improvement plan at 7 percent, withdraws a student past 10 percent, and withdraws anyone absent six consecutive school days. The catalog instead expects at least 90 percent attendance in each Occupational Completion Point: a student below that may be placed on an Attendance Improvement Plan and is withdrawn after falling short again in the next one. Neither document says which rule controls.

• Grades. A GPA below 2.0 at the end of a course brings probation for the next course and withdrawal if it does not recover; any F means withdrawal.
• Time clock. Clocking in for someone else, or being clocked in while absent, can mean dismissal without a refund.
• Readmission. A student withdrawn for attendance has 48 hours from notice to send a letter to the Appeals Committee through the Assistant Director, gets one committee appeal, and then has 48 hours to appeal once to the Director. A student withdrawn for a conduct violation has 48 hours to ask the Director for readmission.
• Financial aid. An appeal of terminated aid is due within five business days of the notice, and the decision, due within five business days, is final.

Grievances and discipline: the college’s steps and the district’s

A Marchman grievance starts informally with the Assistant Director. A written grievance goes to the Director “within three (3) days,” and an appeal goes to Pasco County Schools, 7227 Land O’Lakes Blvd., “within five (5) days.” All three college documents also list the Florida Department of Education’s Commission for Independent Education as a place to register grievances.

The catalog and the college’s grievance form (March 2026, which still cites the 2017-18 Program Catalog) count both periods from “the occurrence,” so the appeal period can run while the Director is still considering the grievance. The handbook does not say when either clock starts, and none of the three says what kind of days.

For discipline, the handbook points students to the district’s 2026-2027 Student Code of Conduct, which defines “student” to include vocational and postsecondary students. The district’s 2026-2027 Student and Parent/Guardian Appeal Rights sheet, posted on that page, gives students 18 or older three days to start a school-level appeal of a suspension.

A suspension of six to ten days, a disciplinary reassignment, or an expulsion can then go to an independent hearing officer, with a written request due within three days of the principal’s decision, and an expulsion appeal to the School Board is due within three days of that officer’s decision. The sheet lets parents and guardians bring an attorney or advocate at their own expense.

Board Policy 5611 (revised November 5, 2024) describes a different ladder: a written grievance to the principal within three school days, an appeal to the Superintendent within three more school days for suspensions of six days or longer, and a decision within five school days. No document says whether a Marchman withdrawal for conduct counts as a suspension or an expulsion.

Title IX reports and accommodations at Marchman

The handbook and catalog send sexual harassment reports to the Director, another administrator, or the district Title IX Coordinator, listed as the Equity Manager at 7227 Land O’Lakes Blvd. The district’s Civil Rights Compliance page now lists the coordinator as the Civil Rights Compliance Manager at 20430 Gator Lane (crc@pasco.k12.fl.us). The handbook says both parties are entitled to an appeal but gives no deadline. Policy 2266 (adopted July 27, 2021) uses written questions rather than a hearing and requires an appeal within five days, which it defines as business days.

To request accommodations, a student completes the Accessibility Services Contact Request on the college’s Accessibility Services page, then brings an IEP, a 504 plan, psychological testing results, or a physician’s documents to the appointment. Provisional or temporary accommodations may be allowed until more documentation arrives, processing takes three to five business days, and the accommodations letter is emailed.

The catalog names the Accessibility/Workforce 504 Coordinator in Building 1 as the contact and the Assistant Director as the second contact. Pasco’s online policy manual lists no separate Section 504 policy. Policy 2260 (revised August 22, 2023) names a Section 504 compliance officer and encourages complaints within 30 days. It calls the Superintendent’s decision “final,” then describes a Board appeal without saying how to request one.

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:

• Futura Career Institute
• Gadsden Technical College Dismissal
• George Stone Technical College Dismissal
• H.W. Brewster Technical College Dismissal
• Hollywood Institute
• International Institute for Healthcare Professionals

Common questions about Fred K. Marchman Technical College cases

Does the nursing pass-rate analysis apply here?

No — this college has no practical or registered nursing program, so there is no NCLEX pass rate to weigh. 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 Fred K. Marchman Technical College?

No. That section applies to Florida College System institutions and state universities. This is a public school operated by the Pasco County School District, 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, which is when the board’s written final order is filed with its clerk. Review is by appeal to a Florida District Court of Appeal under section 120.68, and the notice of appeal is filed with the board’s clerk. The court checks the hearing record for competent substantial evidence and for procedural or legal error — it does not reweigh the evidence.

What is Marchman’s deadline to ask for readmission after a withdrawal?

Forty-eight hours from the withdrawal notice, under the Program Catalog 2026-27. A student withdrawn for attendance writes to the Appeals Committee through the Assistant Director and, if denied, may appeal once to the Director within another 48 hours; a student withdrawn for a conduct violation appeals directly to the Director within 48 hours.

Which attendance rule applies at Marchman, the handbook’s or the catalog’s?

The two 2026-2027 documents conflict, and neither says which one controls. The Adult Student Handbook counts absences against total program hours, with a notice at 3 percent and withdrawal past 10 percent or after six consecutive school days absent. The catalog instead requires 90 percent attendance in each Occupational Completion Point and uses an Attendance Improvement Plan before withdrawal.