May 12, 2017
Casa Loma College disagrees completely with the ABHES decision to withdraw accreditation of our Anaheim campus. ABHES standards state very clearly that the goal of the school is to provide an environment that supports instruction and learning and is conducive to a typical learning environment.
Our appeal was denied claiming that no new evidence was allowed to be provided unless it supports the contention that an error was made initially. There was either a gross error or an agenda to close the campus. The site visit team immediately expressed a very negative reaction to the location. Commenting on its size and condition. We later discovered that a student complaint stating the above had been filed with ABHES.
There were five items addressed in the appeal. The most significant item was compliance with local building and safety laws, relating to the campus operating as authorization to do business in the City of Anaheim. We produced significant documentation to prove that the site visit team lacked the business awareness to adequately evaluate the campus and the local laws. The appeals Commissioners agreed we were operating legally and overturned this citation.
The second citation concerned the common area of the campus and did it complement and support instruction and learning. This is a personal preference standard once the basics of a structure are in place. These all related to the site visit teams personal preference on what a campus should look like, sound like and “feel like.” They addressed noise level, without any standard addressing the actual acceptable level. The flow of students through the campus, through an open environment or via corridors,the size of the classrooms, were they adequate for the students. Based on published standards we easily met the standard for the number of students in attendance, and produced a study which supported our position. Again there is no specific standard as long as the facility is legally able to handle the number attending classes. Yet the appeals panel denied our documentation and affirmed the commission's original flawed decision. Again the layout of the campus is a personal preference and the site visit team ignored evidence that 80 percent of students were in a single program and the placement rates were at or above the standard. They focused on the other 20 percent (which was 15 students) and stated incorrectly that we had an insufficient number of machines on which the studentstrained, yet there is no ABHES standard addressing this ratio. We never exceeded 4 or 5 students per machine. Further the clinical site evaluation of our students demonstrated clinical competencies ranked them at the 96 and 97 percentile scores.
The third citation was a written emergency plan. We were unable to locate the plan at the time of their visit. We located it later and provided a revised plan, however, the appeals commission affirmed the commission's original decision.
The fourth citation was records maintenance. During the site visit we indicated that we were not planning to purchase fireproof file cabinets. However, we were going to use a scanning system to scan the document into our network. We indicated we had been evaluating a program named SchoolDocs. We elected not to purchase SchoolDocs because it was purchasing software and we still needed to have to have employees do the scanning. We were not saving any time but we're spending more money. We produce screen shots demonstrating that we were scanning at a rate sufficient to have all required records scanned it into our system within five or six months yet the appeals panel affirmed the commission's original decision inexplicable referencing SchoolDocs.
The fifth citation was the adequacy of resources. The appeals commission believed we had a magnetic resonance imaging machine at our campus and that it had not been evaluated. We have never had a magnetic resonance imaging machine at our campus, a machine which costs $1,000,000and even the appeals panel schools did not have an MRI machine at their colleges. This was a completely fabricated issue. They then addressed the adequacy of our diagnostic medical sonography equipment. While the equipment is older than what is used in hospitals, the standard does not address age but only the ability to be used to train students for the skills they would need in their careers. Our equipment was more than adequate to train our students in the use of ultrasound scanning equipment as was evidenced by their scores on the evaluation from clinical training sites again 96 and 97 percent. There is no standard for the age of the equipment or the number of students to machines. We had four or fewer students assigned to a scanning machine at any one time.The published standards for medical training, in general, indicate between 3 and 5 students to the machine, up to 10 students per machine. We met that standard. Again the appeals commission supported the site visit team. Again it was a personal preference assessment made by the site visit team completely ignoring the standards.
We believe ABHES ignored the number one priority and that is the education of the student. In the appeal we also requested that we be allowed to teach out the existing 87 students at Anaheim at that campus – again however , that request was denied and now 87 students must travel to Van Nuys Campus to complete their education. Many of these students were already driving two to three hours each Saturday to get to school and now will be required to drive further and longer. Accreditation is supposed to protect the students; this action did not protect the students. Accreditation should be ensuring educational quality; had ABHES Site Visitor Team looked at the student outcomes, they would have realized that regardless of their personal feelings towards the campus the students were performing well both in class and in externship as well as post-graduation with licensing and certification.
For additional clarification please contact Casa Loma College at its headquarters campus at Also check out our student evaluations on social media sites.