Traviss Technical College Dismissal Lawyer — Lakeland

Traviss Technical College in Lakeland is operated by Polk County Public Schools, and its practical-nursing program finished 2025 below the statutory floor.

71.43% of 35 first-time candidates

The program passed 71.43% of 35 first-time candidates against a 77.17% floor — twenty-five passes and ten failures, close to six points short.

Under Fla. Stat. section 464.019(5)(a)1 a Florida nursing program’s first-time NCLEX passage rate must stay within 10 percentage points of the national average for comparable programs — a 77.17% floor for practical nursing in 2025. Traviss finished under it. Section 464.019(5)(a)2 puts a program two consecutive years below the floor at risk of probation and loss of approval, and section 464.019(5)(c) then requires it to disclose that status in writing to students and applicants. A single year below is not probation, and the Board of Nursing publishes no probation roster — but the Department of Health’s per-program license record does show a status, and on 17 September 2026 the Traviss program (NPPN701095) read Approved. Full tables are on the Florida nursing program pass-rate page.

Polk County Public Schools also operates Ridge Technical College in Winter Haven, which passed 65.00% of 40 the same year. Both of the district’s practical-nursing programs therefore finished under the statutory minimum in 2025, though their license records now differ: on 17 September 2026 the Department of Health showed Ridge’s program on Probation and the Traviss program as Approved. That is a district-level pattern rather than a single campus having a bad year, and it matters because the school board — not the college — is the body that adopts the governing rules and, under Fla. Att’y Gen. Op. 2001-05, has to make the final expulsion decision itself.

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 practical-nursing student here gets none of the statutory protections a nursing 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 clinical-competency 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 Traviss case is filed

Polk County is in the Middle District of Florida, assigned by Local Rule 1.04(a) to the Tampa Division — not Orlando. 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.

The code that actually governs an adult student at Traviss

Traviss publishes a separate conduct code for adults. Its Student Handbook for Adult Learners page carries the Polk County School Board Code of Student Conduct for Adult Learners, written by the Multiple Pathways Division, which promises “procedural due process that differs from the Polk County School Board K12 Code of Conduct.”

• Notice goes to the student’s Polk County School Board email, and a student who does not answer a notification meeting request within five days is decided against in absence and loses the right to appeal.
• At that meeting a student may accept responsibility and take an Administrative Hearing, where a conduct investigator may impose any sanction up to expulsion — but that waives the appeal.
• The alternative is a Hearing Board: a faculty chair who votes only to break a tie, two faculty and two student representatives. Meetings are closed to the public and to parents, are recorded, and character witnesses are barred. So are lawyers: “Neither the College nor students shall bring attorneys to any hearing.”
• An appeal is due within three business days, in writing, to an Appeals Committee, which asks only whether due process was followed and whether the sanction fit. Disagreement with a sanction is expressly not a ground, the committee’s decision is final, and sanctions run during the appeal.
• An interim suspension may be imposed by the Assistant Director, the Dean of Students or district staff before any meeting, and it closes off campus facilities and clinical sites.

Two consequences bite hardest in licensure programs. A suspension still counts toward the 60-hour attendance limit, and the student must make up the missed hours and pay for them. Expulsion is permanent separation from Polk County Public Schools, with failing grades, a transcript overlay, a permanent hold and no refund.

Grades, clock hours and the 60-hour line in Traviss’s health programs

One failed component fails the whole course. The Code for Adult Learners grades technical programs A through F and says failing any component — lecture, lab, simulation, externship or clinical — “will result in a recorded grade of ‘F’ for all components of the course attempted.” Some programs use a different scale, and students are told to ask the instructor. That is where the trail ends: Traviss posts no program handbook, no minimum grade for nursing, dental or surgical technology, no clinical removal rule, and no drug-screen or background-check rule.

Attendance is the rule with real numbers behind it. A full-time student is scheduled 5.5 hours a day, 27.5 clock hours a week, and absence is counted in 15-minute increments, tardiness included.

• Instructor warning at 20 cumulative hours absent (10 part-time); a second warning, with an administrator conference, at 40 (20 part-time); involuntary withdrawal at 60 (30 part-time).
• A student involuntarily withdrawn for absences “will be required to sit out one semester before readmission.”
• Six consecutive days without contacting the instructor is an involuntary withdrawal — though the shared Attendance Criteria page says five days and 45 hours a semester instead.

Those rules govern Practical Nursing (1,350 hours, 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., apply in January for a July start), Surgical Technology (1,440 hours, clinical placement arranged by the program’s clinical coordinator within an hour of campus), Dental Assistant (1,230 hours) and Phlebotomy (165 hours). The dental program has a Commission on Dental Accreditation site visit set for April 6-7, 2027, with third-party comments due by February 5, 2027.

Traviss publishes three different grievance ladders

The deadline is three days on all of them; almost nothing else matches. The college’s Policy and Procedures page calls it a “privilege” to question a staff decision, requires a written appeal to the Director within three days of the incident, promises a decision within five days, and routes appeals to the Senior Director of Multiple Pathways, then the Chief Academic Officer, the Superintendent and the Board.

The shared Student Grievance page calls it a right, gives five business days for the decision, and sends appeals to the Senior Director of Career, Technical, Adult and Multiple Pathways, then the Associate Superintendent, Teaching and Learning Services. The 2025-2026 Annual Security Report, published September 30, 2025, sets out a third at pages 15-16: a written grievance to a campus administrator, a meeting within five school days, a written appeal within five school days of that meeting to the Senior Director, a meeting within two weeks, then an appeal to the Associate Superintendent, who “will convene an impartial board.” It also sends unresolved grievances to the Commission for Independent Education, which no grievance page mentions.

The Adult Learners code has gaps too: it announces “a list of explanations of how a person violates” the code and never gives the list, and it refers students to a Sexual Misconduct Policy, a Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policy and “Sections VIII,” none of which are on the page.

Reporting sexual misconduct, and asking for accommodations, across three sites

Traviss teaches at three addresses: the main campus at 3225 Winter Lake Road, Lakeland; the CTO Academy at 4281 Echo Avenue, Bartow; and the AMT Academy at 4590 Rocky Road, Lakeland. The security report calls the last two extension sites at Bartow Airport and Sun N Fun, which matters when a report has to reach the right office.

That report names an Assistant Director at Winter Lake Road as the college’s Title IX Coordinator, while Board Policy 2260, revised December 9, 2025, gives that role to district Compliance Officers. The district’s Compliance and ADA page still links its “Title IX Policy” to Policy 2266, retired June 9, 2026, and its “Section 504/ADA” link to Policy 2260.01, retired May 5, 2026. The report promises a complainant a support person who “will not represent” them and questioning only through an administrator; in one paragraph it still calls the college a university.

For accommodations, the district’s enrollment page sends an adult student to Student Services, the program administrator or the district compliance office. Nothing is published about documentation, timing, or how to challenge a refusal.

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:

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

Common questions about Traviss Technical College cases

What was Traviss Technical College’s nursing pass rate?

71.43% of 35 first-time candidates in 2025 — twenty-five passes and ten failures — against a practical-nursing floor of 77.17%.

Did the other Polk County program do better?

No. Ridge Technical College in Winter Haven, also Polk County Public Schools, passed 65.00% of 40. Both district practical-nursing programs were below the floor in 2025.

Does Fla. Stat. 1006.60 apply?

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

Which court covers Lakeland?

The Middle District of Florida, Tampa 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 Traviss student bring a lawyer to a conduct hearing?

No. The Code of Student Conduct for Adult Learners that Traviss publishes says “Neither the College nor students shall bring attorneys to any hearing.” Hearing Board meetings are held on campus, closed to the public and to parents, digitally recorded, and character witnesses are not allowed; the appeal afterward is limited to three business days, in writing, and the Appeals Committee’s decision is final.

How many hours of absence before Traviss withdraws an adult student?

Sixty cumulative hours for a full-time student, thirty for a part-time student, with an instructor warning at twenty hours and an administrator conference at forty. A student involuntarily withdrawn for absences must sit out one semester before readmission, and a disciplinary suspension still counts toward the same sixty hours — a licensure student then has to make up the missed hours and pay for them.