Hmmmmm! Anyone have any comments on this? http://www.caller.com/news/2013/feb/...er=yahoo_feeds

Nine nursing students are taking legal action against Del Mar College, claiming the school unfairly blocked them from graduating and prevented them from being able to take their licensing exams.

The students in late January asked 94th District Judge Bobby Galvan to grant them a temporary restraining order against the college, forcing the college to immediately certify them as completing their degree requirements and allowing them to take their exams.

The tests, called the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses, are administered by the state board and approve nursing program graduates as registered nurses.

A hearing scheduled Wednesday in Galvan’s court was canceled.

The college declined to comment on the matter.

Spokeswoman Claudia Jackson said the college’s legal counsel was reviewing the petition and that it would be inappropriate to discuss the matter in the meantime.

The students’ attorney Robert J. Heil III could not immediately be reached for comment.

The students in their petition claim they passed their required coursework and all requirements necessary to graduate and get certified to take the national licensing exams, but Del Mar College told them one day before graduation that they would not be allowed to graduate.

Some of those students already had job offers as nurses, had been fitted for graduation caps and gowns and taken their nursing photographs, their petition states.

One student, Keara Torres, said she had good evaluations and a job offer, but instructors changed her grades from passing to failing at the end of the fall 2011 semester, preventing her from graduating or taking her licensing exams, her sworn affidavit stated. She did not elaborate on why her grades were changed.

Torres has since transferred to Coastal Bend College, where she has been offered another job after graduation, the affidavit states.

Del Mar College’s nursing program had been plagued by problems in recent years.

In 2011, the program was placed on warning status when 79 percent of graduates passed, forcing the college to halt its declared registered nurse major applications until the state board approved the college for full status.

In November, the college announced that 97 percent of its registered nursing graduates passed state licensing exams, enough to allow Del Mar to accept student applications for the major this spring.

At least 80 percent of first-time test takers must pass the exam for the program to be board approved.