Tom P. Haney Technical College Dismissal Lawyer

Tom P. Haney Technical College in Panama City is operated by Bay District Schools.

A nursing program above the benchmark, and a framework nobody explains

The Board of Nursing’s 2025 report, which still lists the college under its former name, Tom P. Haney Vocational Technical Center, shows its practical-nursing program passing 91.18% of 34 first-time candidates. That is above the 2025 practical-nursing benchmark on the Florida nursing pass-rate page, so the pass-rate argument has little to offer a Haney student. 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 city

Panama City has both this district technical college and Gulf Coast State College. Gulf Coast is a Florida College System institution covered in full by Fla. Stat. section 1006.60; Haney is operated by Bay District Schools and is not. The distinction decides what process you were owed and which deadlines govern, so it is worth settling at the outset rather than assuming.

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

Panama City is in Bay County, which puts a federal claim in the Northern District of Florida, Panama City 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.

Haney’s nursing rules: 77 percent, 30 hours, two entries

Haney’s practical nursing students must finish every course with at least 77 percent and may miss no more than 30 hours in the whole 1,350-hour program. Both rules come from the college’s Practical Nursing Handbook 2026-2027 (revised May 18, 2026), a supplement to the general student handbook.

• A course average below 77 percent brings an academic warning; a final average below 77 percent means withdrawal (pp. 9, 11).
• A warning comes at 15 missed hours, and withdrawal is automatic past 30. Late minutes count, and a student more than 30 minutes late to clinicals is sent home and marked absent (p. 10).
• Three “U” (unsatisfactory) clinical days, which can follow from unsubmitted paperwork, count as failing the clinical course and bring academic withdrawal (p. 18).
• A clinical facility may ask Haney to withdraw a student (pp. 19-20).
• A student may enter the program only twice. A second entry must come within two years of the withdrawal, and two withdrawals for grades or attendance end future entry. The Director of Nursing weighs extenuating circumstances (p. 11).

The documents do not fully agree. The 2025-26 course syllabus requires at least 77 on each unit exam and says medical notes do not restore missed time. The general 2026-2027 Student Handbook lets the Director grant a hardship exemption from the attendance rule (p. 75), while its veterans section says licensure programs allow no excused absences (p. 86).

Nursing is taught in Building 3 on the main campus (3016 Highway 77, Panama City), the building that also holds the Central Sterile Processing and Patient Care Technician lab. Haney also runs an East Extension at 264 Airport Road in Apalachicola, which opened with Aviation Powerplant Mechanics. The same academic, attendance, and dismissal rules apply there (handbook p. 70).

Withdrawals, grievances, and the Bay District discipline policies

Haney’s administration may withdraw an adult student immediately for a discipline referral, drug or alcohol abuse, endangering behavior, or other conduct it deems inappropriate, and the student may reapply (handbook p. 71). A student who needs more than 150 percent of a course’s scheduled hours may be withdrawn after administrative review, with a written warning at 125 percent (p. 70). Licensure programs allow no leave of absence (p. 76). Appeal clocks are short:

• Grade appeals go to the instructor within two weeks, the school academic administrator within four weeks, and the Director within six weeks, each counted from when the student learned, or should have learned, of the grade. The Director’s decision is final (p. 73).
• A grievance goes to the Director on the signed Student Grievance Form “by the next school day.” An appeal to the District Superintendent is due within three days of the Director’s decision, and the handbook does not say what kind of days (p. 74).

The handbook reprints Bay District School Board Policy 5600, Student Discipline, but not Policy 5611, Due Process Rights, although 5611 says its text belongs in every student handbook. Under Policy 5610 (effective July 1, 2025), a suspension may be appealed to the principal and then the Superintendent within five working days, and expulsion is left to the Board. An adult student has five calendar days from the Superintendent’s notice to ask in writing for a hearing before the full Board, which gives at least 14 days’ notice. An adult may appear for the student as legal counsel or a qualified representative. Policy 5611, by contrast, makes the principal’s ruling on a suspension appeal final. The district’s 2026-27 Code of Student Conduct carves out Haney in two of its rules, on lighters and on dress.

A Title IX complaint at Haney goes to a live hearing

A formal Title IX complaint involving a Haney program is decided after a live hearing, unless it is dismissed or resolved informally, under Policy 2266.01, Title IX – Postsecondary Hearing Procedure (effective July 1, 2025). That policy controls where it conflicts with the general Policy 2266. Reports go to the district Title IX Coordinator at 1311 Balboa Avenue, Panama City (850-767-4322).

• Each party must have an advisor at the hearing, and the advisor asks the questions. The Board appoints one at no charge if a party has none.
• Notice of the hearing comes at least 10 business days ahead. A conflict or bias challenge to the decision-maker is due at least five business days before the hearing, and disability accommodation requests five days before.
• Parties may ask for separate rooms, and hearings are recorded.
• Under Policy 2266, a written appeal is due to the Title IX Coordinator within three business days, and the district aims to finish within 60 days. Objections to an emergency removal are waived unless a Removal Review Meeting is requested within two school days.

The handbook reprints Policy 2266’s written-questions process (pp. 42-57), and both the handbook and the policy cite a “Policy 5601.01, Emergency Removal of Students,” that is not in the district’s manual. Haney’s grievance page cites a “Policy 2.1335” and says advisors may not question witnesses, the opposite of Policy 2266.01.

Getting accommodations at Haney

An adult student asks for accommodations by making an appointment with the School Counselor, according to Haney’s Disability Resources page. Accepted documentation ranges from a high school IEP or 504 plan to testing, psychological reports, Social Security or military disability decisions, and a physician’s letter. Neither that page nor the handbook’s one-paragraph disability section (p. 12) sets a deadline or an appeal for a denied request.

Policy 2260.01 supplies a complaint route. School-based administrators serve as building Section 504/ADA compliance officers, and the district officer is the Executive Director of ESE and Student Services. A written complaint is due within 30 calendar days after the facts come to light, and the building officer has 15 school days to investigate. An appeal to the district officer is due within five school days, with a decision within 10 school days.

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:

• Traviss Technical College Dismissal
• Treasure Coast Technical College Dismissal
• Wilton Simpson Technical College Dismissal
• Withlacoochee Technical College Dismissal
• Academy for Five Element Acupuncture Dismissal
• Academy of Career Training

Common questions about Tom P. Haney Technical College cases

Does the nursing pass-rate analysis apply here?

Only a little. The Board of Nursing’s 2025 report shows Haney’s practical-nursing program passing 91.18% of 34 first-time candidates, above the 2025 benchmark, so what matters more 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 Tom P. Haney Technical College?

No. That section applies to Florida College System institutions and state universities. This is a public school operated by Bay District 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, 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.

My daughter has missed about 20 hours in Haney’s practical nursing program. What happens next?

Haney’s Practical Nursing Handbook 2026-2027 allows 30 hours of absence for the entire program, issues a warning at 15 hours, and withdraws a student automatically once absences pass 30. Late minutes and time spent sent home for dress or supply problems count against the 30 hours, and the program’s syllabus says medical notes do not restore missed time.

Does a Title IX case involving a Haney student get a live hearing?

Yes. Bay District School Board Policy 2266.01 (effective July 1, 2025) requires a live hearing for formal complaints involving Haney’s programs unless the complaint is dismissed or resolved informally, with each party’s advisor asking the questions. A written appeal is due to the district Title IX Coordinator within three business days of receiving the decision, under Policy 2266.