SALEM — When about three dozen nursing students showed up at First Choice Training Institute yesterday on the first day of a new semester, they received sobering news.
The state Board of Nursing has revoked the program's approval, dashing the hopes of students anxious for the semester to begin after "substandard educational programming" prompted the decision, according to the board's executive director, Margaret Walker.
"We closed the practical nursing program so they don't have approval to process nursing students," Walker said.
That means students of the licensed practical nursing program are left in limbo after paying approximately $16,000 to attend the school, Walker said. Some students were scheduled to complete the curriculum in December, while others were to finish next spring.
Walker said the board received numerous complaints from students and also teachers at the school about not being paid. The state labor board has been asked to investigate, she said.
The nursing board's decision was appealed, but the appeal was denied because no new evidence was presented to overturn the ruling, she said. It remains to be seen if the students, most of whom are minorities from places such as Haiti and Africa, will get any of their money back. Walker said they must first request a refund from the school.
"The school is not closing," said owner Bob Ferdinand, who runs First Choice with his wife, Maggie. "I don't know what the intentions are of the Board of Nursing."
But the Ferdinands know their intentions.
"We're going to fight it," Maggie Ferdinand said. "For the Board of Nursing to close (the nursing program) down is a shame."
The students, all dressed in blue shirts and white pants, gathered at the Keewaydin Drive school yesterday morning to learn their future careers as practical nurses had suddenly encountered an obstacle.
Bob Ferdinand and school adviser and consultant Barbara Czmuk said the school's non-nursing programs will continue. The school's website says it also offers a medical assistant program, and phlebotomy and EKG training.
"We are here to let students know what happened," Czmuk said, shortly after the students received the news. "We have asked them to hold on for a month or so."
Both Bob Ferdinand and Czmuk admitted past student scores on the state nursing exam have been low, with Ferdinand calling it a "grading problem."
After completing the approximately one-year program, the students then take an exam to become licensed practical nurses.
Some of the latest test results show a passage rate far short of the national standard of 86 percent, Walker said.
Students who completed the program in December, April and earlier this month also never received their certificates, she said. The state is working to make sure those students get their certificates, Walker added.
The state board is working with the attorney general's office and the New Hampshire Postsecondary Education Commission while the matter is being investigated. No further details were available yesterday.
Czmuk said the school will continue to challenge the Nursing Board's decision.
"We are addressing this legally," she said.
As they sat in a classroom at the school yesterday, some of the students — most of whom declined to give their names — seemed bewildered after hearing the news.
"It is very stressful for us to come here this morning and to find out there is no school," one said.
Another student, Julie DiChicco of Malden, Mass., only had words of praise.
"The school is amazing, the classes are amazing, the teachers are amazing," she said.
Some of the students said they travel nearly two hours, five days a week, to attend classes after working nights. Past students have traveled from as far away as Rhode Island on a daily basis, Czmuk said.
"These are students who want a chance," she said. "They want an opportunity."
The school also formerly operated in Lawrence and consolidated with the Salem school about five years ago, Czmuk said.
