Tompkins Weekly

What is the future of FLSM?



While appealing the accreditation renewal denial FLSM will remain accredited.

While appealing the accreditation renewal denial FLSM will remain accredited.

Things are not looking good for the Finger Lakes School of Massage (FLSM) these days. As of April 29, the school was notified that the Accrediting Commission of the Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training (ACCET) had voted to deny its reaccreditation.

According to current FLSM CEO Shannon Yerkic, faculty, staff, and students at FLSM were notified of the denial last Friday.

“Please know that everyone at the schools and Trumantra Education, which owns and operates the Finger Lakes main campus in Ithaca, NY and branch campuses in Mount Kisco, NY, and Frederick, MD, are deeply concerned with your welfare,” from the statement sent to the FLSM community. “Finger Lakes is committed to reversing this decision and will file an appeal with ACCET by the May 14, 2019 deadline. Finger Lakes and its branches remain accredited at this time and will remain accredited throughout the appeal process. Management and ownership are committed to protecting the ability of all of our students to complete your education and training from an accredited institution. We will provide more information as it becomes available and we will keep the community informed. The School remains committed to providing the best possible experience and education for its student body and we thank you for your patience and understanding.”

The reaccreditation process included an Analytic Self-Evaluation Report (ASER) from the institution, a site visit in September of 2018, the institution’s response to reports from the site visit, and a follow-up visit in January of 2019, another institution response to reports from the follow-up visit, and an interim report from FLSM. According to the 19-page letter from ACCET to current Campus Director Chanin Storm, the school’s accreditation was denied because of a lack of compliance or serious concerns in 13 areas (see the full list on page 8).

On Feb. 14, 2019, the school was notified by ACCET that it would need to provide a Teach-Out Plan for the Ithaca campus, due to the serious concerns regarding the schools continued operation. A Teach-Out plan must meet several requirements, including procedures to ensure that students are provided training and services and that obligations to students will be met, which could mean students are referred to nearby institutions that offer similar programs. Yerkic did not answer questions from Tompkins Weekly about whether the institution had created a teach-out plan, and if so what that plan looked like. The school plans to appeal the decision in the coming weeks.

Former employees of the school say the culture of the school changed when then CEO David Merwin wanted to sell the business and brought in Yerkic. Immediately the culture at the school changed and everything became about making the school money. A former FLSM employee who chose to leave due to a hostile work environment, mismanagement of the institution by upper management, and fear that what was being asked of them to do by management would have negative repercussions for their future employment told Tompkins Weekly that Yerkic’s bullying of the staff and abusive behavior caused high turnover and is directly linked to the school’s decline. Under Yerkic’s management, the position of Campus Director of the Ithaca campus was held by five different people in around two years. The position of Financial Aid Director was held by four different people in that same amount of time.
Letters provided by the source, who chose to stay anonymous, to Merwin from former staff describe Yerkic’s behavior as abrasive, a bully, childish, unprofessional, toxic, and hostile.

“People, when they’re bullied, and when they’re scared, only do what their email tells them to do,” the source said of what it was like to work for Yerkic, who deprioritized things like record keeping, in order to prioritize making the school money.

On Feb. 26, 2019, Yerkic was promoted to Chief Operating Officer and Acting CEO of the Trumantra Education Group, of which FLSM and its campuses operate from, and Merwin was out. On March 28, 2019, the Kuzari Group, an investment firm that purchased a majority share of Trumantra Education Group, a holding firm created by Merwin, filed a lawsuit against Merwin and his former business partner John Robinson in New York State Supreme Court. The lawsuit alleges that Merwin and Robinson defrauded the Kuzari Group and hid from them the serious financial stress of the company and the precarious state of the necessary licenses with the Department of Education.

“Defendants consistently lied about the health and capitalization of the company, hiding the mounting debt and crippling financial distress from Kuzari through blatant lies and omissions,” according to the lawsuit.

Breach of contract, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duties are the three counts brought forth in the lawsuit.

FLSM: Reasons for accreditation renewal denial

Goals
The school was instructed to create new, broad institutional goals, and systemically and effectively use them to operate. But, according to the ACCET letter, “the broad institutional goals published in the ASER were not understood by staff interviewed by the team, including the new Campus Director” of the Ithaca campus.

Human Resource Management
The school failed to demonstrate that it could ensure qualified and capable personnel were being effectively utilized and annually evaluated, and that it had implemented policies and procedures to effectively address recruitment, hiring, training, and evaluation, among other things, of all personnel. ACCET’s follow-up visit found that personnel performance evaluations were missing for several employees, personnel files of current employees were incomplete and missing documents.

Records
FLSM failed to demonstrate that it had an organized record-keeping system. ACCET’s follow-up visit found that student financial records were not kept at the main campus and were not accessible to the accreditation team. Records for seven students requested by the team on the first day of the visit were not provided until five days after the visit.

Communications
In order to maintain operational effectiveness, FLSM needed to demonstrate that it held, and documented, periodic meetings with employees. The school provided insufficient documentation for the meetings that were held, therefore it failed to demonstrate full compliance with the standard.

Financial Assistance/Scholarships
FLSM failed to demonstrate that it had a cancellation and refund policies that are “consistently administered in compliance with statutory, regulatory, and accreditation requirements,” that refunds were consistently calculated and timely, that proper documentation to support refund calculations had been maintained and were readily available, and that a qualified individual manages the effectiveness of the financial operations and practices.

Educational Goals and Objectives
While current students indicated that the Ithaca campus was consistently delivering approved curriculum, former students who graduated in 2018 completed end-of-year surveys that gave unfavorable ratings to program consistency, enoguht to make FLSM fail to demonstrate full compliance with the standard.

Curriculum Review and Revision
The school needed to implement effective written policies that focus on a comprehensive review to monitor and improve the curriculum. The Ithaca campus failed to demonstrate the effective implementation of the necessary policies.

Qualifications of Instructional Personnel
The follow-up visit found that documented evidence that instructors met the minimum qualifications required by the state was not provided. The week after the follow-up visit, while more documents were provided for some personnel, documented evidence was still not provided for nine instructors.

Attendance
FLSM needed to institute effective policies for monitoring and documenting attendance, and to inform students of their attendance on a regular basis. The ACCET team found that clinic-hours were not documented in a timely or consistent manner, making it difficult for students to know where they stood.

Student Progress
Much like the attendance issue, FLSM failed to prove that it was effectively monitoring and recording student progress. According to the ACCET letter, grades for courses previously completed were not accurately recorded. The institution failed to provide sufficient evidence that corrective action had been implemented to correct the issues.

Student Satisfaction
Student feedback surveys included numerous “highly critical comments related to staff turnover,” and only three out of 20 students indicated that they would recommend the FLSM program to others. The school failed to demonstrate that it was using student feedback to improve.

Completion and Job Placement
The school failed to demonstrate that it had established and implemented written policies to assess, document, and validate the quality of its programs relative to its completion and placement rates. It also failed to demonstrate that it effectively helped students find jobs or document job placement results, and that the job placement rates of FLSM graduates were consistent with ACCET benchmarks.

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