Mortuary School Issue may cause Invalidated Licenses
The New York Post reported over the weekend in an article that you can read here that the State Bureau of Funeral Directing has notified 94 New York morticians that they will lose their licenses if they don’t re-take their exam by June 30 or apply for an extension to December 31. In addition, according to the article, another 300 graduates of the American Academy McAllister Institute (AAMI) from 15 different states have had their passing scores invalidated by the International Conference of Funeral Service Examining Boards.
This action comes, as reported by the Post, after the New York State Health Department charged that seven teachers at AAMI “engaged in a widespread conspiracy” to game the exam. According to the charges, the alleged cheating may help to explain AAMI’s historically high passing rate – which the Post reports as 92% as compared to 76% of peers trained elsewhere.
Many are worried that the crackdown may cause a staffing crises at New York mortuaries. Robert Ruggiero, executive director of the Metropolitan Funeral Directors Association was quoted saying that there is already a 30% staffing shortage among New York funeral homes. “There’s a limited number of funeral directors already straining to accommodate public caseload” he also said.
Dalene Paull, the executive director of the Funeral Service Examining Board is quoted in the article saying, “I’ve been here 20 years, and we’ve never seen. . . a scheme of this magnitude.”
Funeral Director Daily take: The article mentions that many funeral trade groups are defending AAMI and its graduates. We’ve been around long enough to know that there are two sides to every story. AAMI will get its opportunity to tell its side of the story and then we can make better judgements.
However, we also know that where there is smoke there is usually fire. And, headlines like this in a large metropolitan newspaper with a huge on-line presence just is not good for our industry. We will be watching what happens in this case going forward.
[wpforms id=”436″ title=”true” description=”true”]
“AAMI will get its opportunity to tell its side of the story and then we can make better judgements.” AAMI had a chance to do the right thing and help its students. The International Conference of Funeral Service Examining Boards, the American Academy McAllister Institute of Funeral Service, Inc., and Mary Margaret Dunn announced in 2015 that the Conference’s litigation filed in the Southern District of New York against AAMI and Ms. Dunn had been settled confidentially. Since then, the Conference has said they have “credible evidence” that they refuse to allow the former students have access to in order to defend themselves–all while invalidating their scores and notifying the licensees state boards. IMO, that equals to a serious case of lack of due process.