Have a relative in a 5 semester nursing program in the South. The rules of the University is that failing is scoring under a 77% on any class. You are permitted to fail just one class (which you must repeat), but if you fail another you are out of the nursing program. My relative failed one class in the 2nd semester and it was taken and passed.
In the 4th semester that was just completed, they got an A, B and the 3rd grade was headed for a B until they were asked to write a reflective essay. In the rubric, they were allowed a rewrite of the essay if they got a poor grade. Well they were given a 62% on the essay and the professor denied him an opportunity for the rewrite. Because of that they were just dismissed out of the nursing program, so with 130 credits they have no degree. and perhaps a meeting with the Dean to discuss the situation.
If the Dean does not recognize the extenuating circumstance of the Professor not allowing the writeup then what is the next alternative to get some justice?
If it says in the rubric that a rewrite is permitted, and if the student has a paper copy of the rubric, the Dean should allow the rewrite. This will almost certainly happen.
Your relative must be devastated. Not sure if this is a for-profit school or an accelerated program at a non-profit. IIf non-profit, there should be a student ombudsman on campus. Their role is to assist/advocate for the student in these situations. The syllabus is the student’s contract with the class, if the rubric i part of the syllabus by all means your relative should appeal, if rubric was stand alone your relative should still appear. If for-profit school, they should find out if there is an appeal process, how it works, and then appeal. Your relative needs to be very clear and polite regarding what he is requesting, that he be given the opportunity to rewrite the assignment as explicitly stated on the syllabus or rubric. Nursing is a difficult major, and the rules are quite strict across the county, regarding percentages needed to pass tests and classes. If this is a non-profit school, all students have the right to appeal. If a for profit, it may be a bit more difficult, but an appeal process should be somewhere in the school’s policy.
If it is in the syllabus and class policies, then the school must follow its own rules. Unless there is more to this story than your relative is telling you, I think the Dean will overrule the professor. If it is allowed to stand, I think your relative should seek legal counsel and sue the school for the price of his tuition. I do not think it will get to this phase, but students have had to seek legal means to resolve issues within colleges and universities when they do not follow their own policies. Nursing schools can be very tough and rigid when it comes to their standards and very unforgiving, if you do not meet them.
Appeal to the Dean, yes. But I wouldn’t necessarily rush to the lawyers. It could be that OP hasn’t got the whole of the details from the student. Wait for the talk with the dean first.
Nursing programs have notoriously high attrition rates and stories of dismissals during the last semesters are more common than you’d think. Failing grades are frequently in the high 70s. This is also not unusual.
If rewrites are permitted in the syllabus, definitely appeal. Even if stated on a rubric, the student has a decent case. However, there will be circumstances under which a prof doesn’t have to allow a rewrite, even when if the syllabus permits it. Not saying it’s the case, but plagiarism comes to mind. Sometimes penalties for late work may apply that do not have to be undone.
I doubt very much lawyers old be necessary (or even very useful). If the prof has violated his own policies, it’s easy enough to prove and the dean will side with the student. There may, however, be more to the story.
Note that in nursing schools failing isn’t necessarily failing the class, it is just not getting a high enough score to be allowed to continue to the next class. At my daughter’s nursing school a grade below 77% will show up as a C on the transcript, but you still have to repeat the class. And you can only repeat one nursing class for the entire program. My daughter is in her 3rd of 4 semesters, and 2/3 of the class is in danger of falling below 77% pending the outcome of the final, which is tomorrow. Luckily my daughter is in the 1/3 which is solidly passing, but it is pretty high stress. It is certainly worth appealing this decision, they should have an appeals process in place, and hopefully not allowing the rewrite was a misunderstanding.
But not certainly. If a rewrite wouldn’t have brought the student up to passing, that might be another reason not to allow it. I’ve had this discussion with students before. They really want to redo something, but I don’t want to waste their time if the end result remains the same. It’s pretty easy to put a number in the gradebook and see if it will.
Not trying to say there’s no case here. There may very well be, and if there is, the student should pursue it vigorously. Just trying to point out that situations may not be as straightforward as the family member presented it to be.
That’s irrelevant. No matter where the line is, someone is going to be just on the other side of it. I would focus on the written policies regarding re-submission of the essay. And don’t assume that re-writing it would “undoubtedly” give him a passing grade. If the re-write was not an improvement over the first in the instructor’s eyes, he would still fail.
I wish him luck, though. From what I’ve read on my nursing forum, not many reputable nursing schools (if any) accept nursing credits from other nursing schools. People who fail out of another nursing school usually have to start over with the next school.
OK, I’m a little confused. It sound like the policy is that two failed classes (aka a grade below 77%) means the student would get kicked out of the program. The student failed one class a few semesters ago. But in this case, the student simply got a failing grade in a class, but also got two other good grades. A little short math shows that, if there are only 3 grades in the class, in order for the student to have gotten below a 77 in this class, the A and the B would’ve had to be very low within the range (like a 92 or less for the A and a 83 or less for the B) AND the failing 62 would’ve had to be worth a lot of the class points. I even did a scenario in which the 62 was worth 40% of the grade (and the low A only 25%) and still came out with a 76.9.
So is there more to this? More grades in the class that were mentioned here?
No, it’s not.
Pretty much any syllabus I have ever read, or written, has had the clause that the professor reserves the right to revise the syllabus for any reason at all. It’s not a contract by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a document that is intended to help the students understand the expectations and objectives of the class.
I think your relative should start by talking to the professor and figuring out why the professor denied them an opportunity for a rewrite. There are some instances I can see which a student would be denied the opportunity - for example, if the essay were failed for plagiarism. If that ship has sailed, then that’s what I would explain to the dean - that the professor has a policy in the syllabus to allow for a rewrite, but he was not granted one, and he is unaware of the reason why. The dean will investigate (if he wants to, and sees a reason to).
