vocational school help needed

[mrsweasel]

I'm in central PA, and please, only respond if you REALLY know what you're talking about.

I'm a current student at a vocational school (a big name beauty school to be precise) and have recently regretted ever paying these people for my "education." And just to be clear, I'm not the only one. We've complained to our supervisor, we've gone over his head to his boss, and we've hit a dead end after that. They will not tell us who is above him. We're in the process of filing a complaint with the State Board of Cosmetology. I do know that there needs to be a complaint on record before we can proceed to finding a lawyer, and I do believe there are enough of us for a class action suit, but this is where I need some help. I'm not sure if there is a specific type of lawyer that I should be looking to contact, and ultimately I do NOT want to have this school shut down and have to start my education again somewhere else, but I do want changes made, and, worst case senario, I want ALL of the money I have paid them so that I can go somewhere else. My classmates all feel the same.

These are valid complaints, violations of state law, plus plenty of "wasting time" problems...

Just please help me find out where to go and who to contact (or if I should even post this in a different forum). And if there are any lawyers reading this who are interested, feel free to leave you're info.

Thanks!

 

[seniorjudge]

I'm in central PA, and please, only respond if you REALLY know what you're talking about.

I'm a current student at a vocational school (a big name beauty school to be precise) and have recently regretted ever paying these people for my "education." And just to be clear, I'm not the only one. We've complained to our supervisor, we've gone over his head to his boss, and we've hit a dead end after that. They will not tell us who is above him. We're in the process of filing a complaint with the State Board of Cosmetology. I do know that there needs to be a complaint on record before we can proceed to finding a lawyer, and I do believe there are enough of us for a class action suit, but this is where I need some help. I'm not sure if there is a specific type of lawyer that I should be looking to contact, and ultimately I do NOT want to have this school shut down and have to start my education again somewhere else, but I do want changes made, and, worst case senario, I want ALL of the money I have paid them so that I can go somewhere else. My classmates all feel the same.

These are valid complaints, violations of state law, plus plenty of "wasting time" problems...

Just please help me find out where to go and who to contact (or if I should even post this in a different forum). And if there are any lawyers reading this who are interested, feel free to leave you're info.

Thanks!

You are pretty vague in what exactly you want so the best I can tell you is contact your state bar and ask them if they can refer you to a lawyer who knows your state's administrative law very well.

If they won't do that, then start looking in the phone book for your state capital. There are tons of lawyers who practice administrative law there.

 

[mrsweasel]

Sorry, I didn't realize how vague I was. I'll post some specifics...

First off, I know we are severly under-equipped for the amount of students. There are roughly 75 students total, 50 of which are in the class who practices on clients. There are supposed to be 4 shampoo basin's for a school of 25, we have 6. 4 dry and 4 wet sanitizers, none of us have ever seen any. 4 facial chairs, we have 3. The numbers listed of what we should have are for a school enrolling 25 students. And I thought I read somewhere that schools can only charge for the supplies used. Yet, I'm pretty sure that no one uses $8 worth or shampoo or water.
Like I said, there are 50 senior students, with half being in the classroom on monday and tuesday and in the clinic wednesday, and thursday, and the other half is the reverse. Both classes are to be in the clinic on friday. We have 23 stations on the floor. In another 5 weeks, there will be 8 more of us moving up, however, there are only 2 students getting ready to graduate before then.

There are cases of playing favorites between teachers and students. To graduate we're require so many services on clients. When others realized on student had not been on the floor for a long time, if ever, they confronted her, asking how she got her services done. Her response was "the teacher and I have an arrangement." Also cases of bending the rules for some and not for others. Freshmen students are required to pass an 100 question test before moving to the senior class. They are allowed 3 tries to pass the test and then they are suposed to be dropped from the class and have to re-enroll. Some students are given 4, 5, etc chances, sometimes just orally asking questions merely to pass the students. I heard our supervisor say, "we do whatever we have to do to pass you, because it makes the school look bad." If some students fail a curriculum in the freshman class, they are catered to and get to move on, others are dropped. Some students have children and their children's doctors/daycare excuses are not accepted, but other students bank loan approval statements are.

2 weeks ago, we had a class of 25 students, and barely the room to breathe when we all went to do hands-on work, yet they continue to try to enroll students. Administration says they would have no problem hiring a new teacher, however, when I first started, we had a teacher who was so bad, the admin fired her and we were moved in with another class. Soon after, another teacher was fired. They quickly moved a student teacher into the position because there were too many students and not enough teachers. Obviously, they're incapable of hiring another teacher. We don't even have substitues. When a teacher is out sick, we are combined into one class.

The administration is looking to bring more students in, however there is not enough parking, or at least the parking lot it not properly set up, and it constantly is a firehazard. It is nothing to see 3 or 4 cars parked in and no firelanes.
There's one break room that is no larger than a classroom, yet it is supposed to fit half if not all of us in it for lunch.

There are quite a few students upset right now about being cheated out of hours. According to State Rules, we are allowed up to 8 hrs per day, we are in class 6.25 (a 45 minute lunch not counted). We were told day 1 that we could make up hours over our lunch break and recieve credit for those 45 min, however some students are not getting them now. In a dispute over hours, a student left the supervisor's office to avoid losing her temper, and returned to the client she had in her chair. At which point the supervisor approached her in front of her client, other clients, and other students and began to argue with her again, telling her she needed to leave now (while she was in the middle of a service). 3 clients got up and left.

And I believe what irks me the most is that there is not a day that goes by that our class is not sitting on our butt's doing nothing at some point. For example, I missed a Friday and a Monday, and when I returned on Tuesday, I made up the ONE thing I missed, and I made it up during class. There is so much wasted time, but if I leave to return home (where there's always something to do) I'm docked those hours. Oh and there are times when we will take an afternoon and go to the beauty supply store that is owned by the same company that owns the store.

This is a brief summary of the things that go on. Truthfully, when I talked to the administration, it was an hour of discussing what goes on, and half of this wasn't included at the time. I hope this gives a better idea of what we're looking to get fixed. And as I said before, it's not that we're really out for money, or to shut the place down, but just that we all want the hours of education we paid for to be productive, and we want the supplies and room to operate the way we should.

And thanks seniorjudge for the earlier advice.

 

[dallas702]

If you don't think you are getting what you were guaranteed IN WRITING (your contract with the school) you have evry right to complain to them and demand a refund. If you want to stay, and this is what they provide, you don't have much to do except go with the program. You can complain to their licensing authority. In some states it's the State Board of Education or the Dept. of Education. Some postsecondary schools are under the umbrella of the Board of Regents. The school will also have an accrediting body (ie National Association of XXXX XXXXX Schools) that will have leverage. If the school takes federal loan money through any of the guarantee programs or Pell Grants/Stanford Loans you can talk to them.

Try this site: http://www.consumer-action.org/archives/English/library/frauds_scams/2002_VocationalSchool/index.php?English/library/frauds_scams/2002_VocationalSchool/index.php