Stone Academy closes. Office of Higher Education will face scrutiny on its regulation of school.

Stone Academy, a private for-profit school with campuses in East Hartford, Waterbury and West Haven, has closed. Stone had offered medical assistant, practical nursing and patient care specialist diploma programs.

Students were notified of the closure Tuesday by a letter from Office of Higher Education (OHE) Executive Director Timothy Larson. The five-page letter’s purpose, according to Larson, is “to ensure that students have a comprehensive understanding of the various concerns and challenges facing Stone Academy, which precipitated the closure of the school.” One unintended revelation is that OHE appears to have failed in properly monitoring Stone’s programs and acting decisively when it eventually became aware of them.

Only on January 27th did OHE enter into an agreement with Stone for a “full audit” of failing programs. “Stone Academy has failed to comply with the Agreement. The audit has not been conducted.”

Private occupational schools pay into the Private Occupational School Account maintained by OHE in anticipation of the costs and hurdles students face when a school closes. OHE’s use of funds became the subject of mild scrutiny by the Financial Advisory Committee (FAC) last spring when the agency requested a transfer of funds to cover costs for a career fair for high school students held at the Morgan Sun casino. An Office of Policy and Management memorandum revealed that POSA funds had been used for “IT expenses, consulting services, records storage and removal, temporary office support, and other agency operations.”

The legislature’s budget committee will hold a public hearing on Governor Lamont’s higher education spending proposal today. It should provide an opportunity to ask Larson or someone else from his office why OHE did not engage in its previous practice of beginning to find programs for students who were about to be displaced. The committee will also want a more detailed account of how Larson spent POSA funds.

Published February 15, 2023.