Sheridan Technical College Dismissal Lawyer — Hollywood

Sheridan Technical College in Hollywood is operated by Broward County Public Schools, and it ran the largest practical-nursing cohort of any Florida district technical college in 2025.

81 candidates at 79.01%, just above the floor

The practical-nursing program passed 79.01% of 81 first-time candidates against a 77.17% floor — clearing it by under two percentage points on the biggest district cohort in the state. A margin that fine on a cohort that large is worth naming precisely: the program is not failing, but it sits close enough to the statutory line that a single cohort’s results decide whether it stays above.

That is exactly the circumstance in which the incentive to remove a student whose examination result is predicted to be a failure is sharpest. If a dismissal here rested on predicted performance rather than on a rule the handbook actually states, that distinction is the case.

The Broward comparison the district generated itself

Broward County Public Schools runs three technical colleges with practical-nursing programs, and in 2025 they diverged: Atlantic Technical College passed 87.50% of 56, Sheridan 79.01% of 81, and McFatter Technical College 75.00% of 56 — McFatter below the floor. Same school board, same adopted policies, same county, same clinical market. A twelve-point spread across three colleges of one district locates the variable at program level rather than anywhere the district can disclaim.

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

Hollywood is in Broward County, which puts a federal claim in the Southern District of Florida, Fort Lauderdale 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.

Sheridan’s campuses, and what a health program demands before day one

Every Sheridan health program runs on the Hollywood main campus, and most have an entry process that can end an enrollment before class starts. The 2025-26 Sheridan Technical College Catalog puts the main campus at 5400 Sheridan Street in Hollywood, the STC West Campus at 20251 Stirling Road in Pembroke Pines, and Sheridan Technical High School in Fort Lauderdale (pages 1 and 3). Its health programs are Practical Nursing (1,350 clock hours), Surgical Technology, Medical Assisting, Patient Care Technician (600 hours), Pharmacy Technician ATD (1,050 hours), Phlebotomy (165 hours), Electrocardiograph Technology (465 hours) and Medical Coder/Biller ATD.

Sheridan’s Health Programs 2026-27 Admissions Checklist (marked 6-15-26) sets a two-part entry whose second part runs through Complio: a $110 new-student bundle, a ten-panel urine drug screen, a Level 2 background check, a physical exam, and an immunization file that still asks for proof of COVID-19 vaccination. Screen, clearance and physical are each good for 18 months. Clinical programs carry a $13 liability insurance charge, uniforms are required, visible tattoos and piercings beyond single stud earlobe earrings are barred, and no admissions fee is refundable.

The drug-screen rule that ends a health enrollment, and the twelve-month wait

A positive screen ends the enrollment, and the wait to reapply is a year. The Drug Screening Policy for the Health Science Education and Practical Nursing departments — the version Sheridan still links from its 2026-27 checklist, marked “Updated: 4-15-19” — requires the ten-panel screen before enrollment in practical nursing and within the first three weeks of any other health science program.

A positive result means withdrawal; so does failing to test on time; a negative dilute result means an immediate second test at the student’s expense. A student withdrawn for a positive screen “will not be eligible to reapply or apply for readmission for a minimum of twelve months from the date of withdrawal.” Screens carry 18 months unless enrollment breaks, which the policy defines as non-attendance of one full semester or 18 weeks. The 2026-2027 Broward Technical Colleges Student Handbook adds a possible one-year bar on enrolling in any health science program. Neither document gives a student a way to contest the result.

How a complaint moves, and what an administrator may do without a hearing

Sheridan’s ladder is short. The college’s Grievance Process Overview (marked STC/ME/9-27-23) runs: informal meeting with the staff member, then the completed grievance form to the Principal/Director, then the Director or designee of the district’s Office of Service Quality, then the Superintendent’s Office, then outside agencies. The 2026-2027 handbook attaches five school days to each step and makes the Superintendent’s written answer final for the penalty.

Discipline sits outside that ladder. The Conduct and Discipline Code for Adult Students (form IF062-WEIM, dated 8/10/18) lets a school administrator suspend an adult student for up to 10 days or involuntarily withdraw the student for up to one school year, and makes a weapon, alcohol or drug violation an automatic one-year withdrawal from every adult, alternative, technical and community school in the district. It sets no notice period, no hearing and no advisor rule, and points the student back to the grievance procedure. On attendance the handbook withdraws a student on the seventh day after six consecutive absences and treats three withdrawals in twelve months as grounds to bar re-entry for two enrollment periods — but for practical nursing it defers to a Practical Nursing Handbook that Sheridan publishes nowhere on its site.

Asking for accommodations, and where a sex-discrimination complaint goes

Accommodations start with paperwork the student gathers. Sheridan’s 2026-2027 Request Disability Services sheet asks the student to attend an online orientation, then bring documentation from a physician, psychologist or psychiatrist, or an IEP or 504 Plan from a Florida public high school, dated within the last four years. Without one, the college’s Verification of Disability Form must be completed by a qualified medical professional and carry a signature, credentials and an office stamp. Documents go to Building 11 on the main campus; an intake interview follows, at which a 504 Plan may be written. Nothing in the sheet allows an appeal from a refused accommodation; the disability track in the Grievance Process Overview is the only route, and it routes the Principal/Director’s Grievance Resolution Notice through the district’s Equal Educational Opportunities/ADA Compliance department before the student is told the outcome.

Sex-discrimination complaints leave the college. Under the School Board’s Nondiscrimination Policy Statement 4001.1, last amended 6/13/17, the Director of Equal Educational Opportunities/ADA Compliance is the district’s Equity Coordinator and Title IX Coordinator. Its process runs on working days — ten to interview the complainant, ten to notify the respondent, ten for evidence, twenty-five for review — and aims to finish in about 60 calendar days with a finding of probable cause or no probable cause. No student hearing and no appeal from that finding appears in the policy.

Where Sheridan’s own documents disagree with each other

The college publishes three different sets of numbers for the same nursing program. The 2025-26 catalog (page 49) gives 61 percent completion and 73 percent placement for 2023-24; the 26/27 Practical Nursing flyer gives 82 percent and 96 percent for that same year; the Practical Nursing page gives 68 percent and 50 percent. All three agree that the program is accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing “with conditions.”

Program lengths drift too: Surgical Technology is 1,330 hours over 12 months in the catalog and 1,440 hours over 13 months on the flyer, and Medical Assisting is 1,300 hours on the Medical & Health Science Programs page against 900 on the flyer. That page also advertises dental assisting, dental laboratory technology and mental health technician training, none of which Sheridan offers. The Policies page still hands out the 2025-2026 handbook while the Student Handbook page hands out the 2026-2027 one, next to a “Board Policy 5.8 – Student Conduct and Discipline Code” that opens a 2020-21 code book; the board’s current policy list has no 5.8.

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:

• South Dade Technical College Dismissal
• Southern Technical College
• Suncoast Technical College Dismissal
• Tom P. Haney Technical College Dismissal
• Traviss Technical College Dismissal
• Treasure Coast Technical College Dismissal

Common questions about Sheridan Technical College cases

What was Sheridan’s nursing pass rate?

79.01% of 81 first-time candidates in 2025 — the largest district technical college cohort in Florida — against a practical-nursing floor of 77.17%. It cleared by under two points.

How do Broward’s other technical colleges compare?

Atlantic Technical College passed 87.50% of 56 and McFatter Technical College 75.00% of 56, the last below the floor. All three are Broward County Public Schools institutions under the same board policies.

Does Fla. Stat. 1006.60 apply to Sheridan?

No. It applies to Florida College System institutions and state universities. Sheridan is operated by Broward County Public Schools, so the Fourteenth Amendment and the board’s own rules govern — with Castle v. Appalachian Technical College the Eleventh Circuit authority on a nursing student at a public technical college.

Who must decide my expulsion?

The district school board itself. Per Fla. Att’y Gen. Op. 2001-05 the evidentiary hearing may be delegated but the final expulsion decision may not be.

My daughter was withdrawn from a Sheridan health program after a positive drug screen. Can she start again next term?

Not for a year. Sheridan’s Drug Screening Policy for the Health Science Education and Practical Nursing departments says a student withdrawn for a positive screen is not eligible to reapply or to apply for readmission for a minimum of twelve months from the date of withdrawal, and the 2026-2027 Broward Technical Colleges Student Handbook allows a one-year bar on enrolling in any health science program from the date of notification. Neither document publishes an appeal from the result itself, so the grievance procedure is the only written route.

How long do we have to complain about something that happened at Sheridan?

The clock is five school days, and it restarts at each step. Under the 2026-2027 handbook the written statement goes to the Principal/Director within five school days of the last conference, the Principal/Director answers in writing within five school days, and the student then has five school days to ask the district’s Office of Service Quality for an appointment. Disability complaints run on a separate track that gives the Principal/Director fifteen school days to issue a Grievance Resolution Notice, plus three school days for the district’s Equal Educational Opportunities/ADA Compliance department to review it first.