Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/18/2025

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  My student, an honor student at a local high school, has successfully completed nearly 30 hrs of dual enrollment classes. Aside from this success, he had a series of technical issues with **********, *******, and the entire student network for Georgia Northwestern Technical College, spanning 2023-2024. He took two online courses during Summer 2024 and completed all assignments thoroughly and promptly. At the end of the summer semester, we were notified of failing grades for both of the courses, citing that the majority of the assignments, tests and quizzes were never received by the instructors.
  
  Following the school's outlined protocol, we appealed both failing grades (twice) and requested in-person meetings repeatedly. The requests for a meeting were completely ignored, even after the school was notified of my son's special needs, and both appeals were denied citing activity logs from ********** as proof that he had not completed his work.
  
  We agreed to repeat one of the courses during Fall 2024, and meticulously tracked his progress for the assignments. On multiple occasions, his completed assignments were lost by ********** and *******, which he communicated repeatedly to administration and the instructor, sharing screenshots and more. There were also random system lockouts for his student account through this semester, which again was thoroughly explained and documented (by us).
  
  After SIX months of reporting issues with his student account and access, the school has still refused to correct any problems, stating "the problems cannot be located". Despite repeated appeals and communication, and finally a web meeting with faculty and support staff involved, GNTC has continued to refuse to remove or correct my son's summer course grade for one course. We did finally harass them enough that they agreed to update the other course grade per my son's screenshots, but they are billing us as self-pay for the retake rather than waiving the fee under dual enrollment.

  Business Response

  Date: 03/13/2025

  Georgia Northwestern Technical College operates as a unit of
  the Technical College System of Georgia and adheres to TCSG State Policy. GNTC
  staff can access all student work and reports in **********, GNTC’s Learning
  Management System, for a period of three academic years, per our Academic
  Record Retention Policy (TCSG State Policy 6.3.1).
  
  The customer’s son enrolled in and completed two courses
  during the Summer 2024 semester, which ran from May 13 to July 24, 2024. GNTC
  expects students to be accountable for completing assignments, checking grades,
  and communicating with faculty as needed. Final grades for the summer semester
  were posted on July 29, 2024. GNTC's Fall 2024 semester started on August 12.
  
  On August 9, 2024, the customer submitted an academic grade
  appeal on her son’s behalf after he received an F in both Math and Economics.
  However, the appeals were denied due to a lack of evidence that the required
  assignments were completed and no identified technical issues. Each course used
  different platforms integrated with **********, GNTC’s Learning Management
  System, and no other GNTC students reported issues with these platforms or
  **********. A review of the student’s assignments and login history showed no
  record of completed work.
  
  In August, the customer’s son re-enrolled in the Math course
  he had previously failed, incurring a $321 retake fee. The instructional
  delivery method remained the same as in the summer semester. During the Fall,
  the customer continued to communicate on her son’s behalf, reporting ongoing
  technical difficulties. Despite no identified technical issues, faculty and the
  dean worked with the student to ensure he was not penalized for submitting work
  in incorrect sections as the student. The student successfully completed the
  Math course in Fall 2024 with an A.
  
  Following a December meeting, which the customer opted to
  attend virtually, GNTC’s Chief Information Officer investigated the student’s
  account and found no issues. Additionally, GNTC coordinated with platform
  vendors, who confirmed no system-related problems.
  
  GNTC complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act
  (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Civil Rights Restoration
  Act. Students requiring accommodations must self-disclose and complete the
  necessary paperwork through the Accessibility Services Office. The customer’s
  son never made an effort to contact the office to request accommodations.
  
  As per college procedures, courses that students complete
  are not removed from a student’s transcript without sufficient reasoning and
  justification.
  

  Customer Answer

  Date: 03/14/2025

  
  
  Complaint: ********
  
  
  
  I am rejecting this response because: 

  We vehemently reject this response for reasons already stated. There were a total of 3 online courses, and all the issues with lost assignments in ********** occurred in all of them. During one of our support calls with *******, one of the third-party softwares, the support technician literally watched a completed assignment reset and all saved work disappear, which confirmed that my son had completed the work correctly and had saved/submitted the work correctly but the system lost it. That alone is enough evidence to warrant reassessing all (online) courses he participated in, and in the very least proves that he was not the problem in this scenario. We are not discussing just one or two lost assignments--ENTIRE semesters worth of work were lost MULTIPLE times, and we provided screenshots and screen recordings to support that. We also requested numerous times that my son's online student account be completely reset or removed/recreated in case there was an error with the online account overall. This was never done, or even considered. It was assumed that, since he could send/receive email messages through his student ******* account, that all third-party softwares were functioning as they should. (Forgive the heavy eye roll as I type that, as a seasoned web and app developer.) 
  
  As for the self-disclosing or not of his disability, he is a high school student and was never once prompted throughout his registration as a dual enrollment student to self-disclose any disability. We had no communication with GNTC directly for any of his previous courses through dual enrollment for the two years prior to these horrendous online courses. His previous dual enrollment courses through GNTC were taken in person at ******** High School (with instructors who repeatedly refused to use ********** for their grading or assignment tracking due to its faultiness). And all ******** High School staff and faculty are aware of my son's disability and communicate with him appropriately. Not once in this entire interaction has anyone from GNTC staff or faculty contacted Ringgold's administration or counselors for further clarification or documentation, nor were we ever provided links to online forms or even downloadable forms to utilize for this disclosure. Had that ever been a part of the conversation, we would have certainly provided what was asked of us. 

  My son, an honor student with a flawless academic career prior to GNTC online systems, completed each and every assignment asked of him for both summer 2024 courses. Throughout the summer semester, he was contacted ONE singular time early in the class that a math test was a few days late, to which he immediately responded and submitted the test. No other notifications from the system or from either instructor were ever sent to make him aware that his work was not being received. One email from two different instructors for an entire semester--that's it. No other communication was received or attempted. There's no excuse for zero communication with an online student for an entire semester. That alone turns the "instructor" into an online babysitter or tech support, when no effort is made to teach or to communicate with the students. So yes, my son's failing grades reported to ******** High School a week after the semester ended were a surprise to us. And yes, we did wait until the semester ended to notify GNTC administration and instructors of the issue, because prior to that we were not aware there was one. So I stand by our original statement and the bottom line of this entire situation: He did the work, he completed both courses, and he earned passing grades in both as well as the fall retake of the math class that shouldn't have been necessary.

  GNTC simply hopes to generate revenue through the dual enrollment program and clearly has no intention of providing quality education or positive experiences for the students involved. Parents beware.

  
  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  
  
  ***** ********

  Business Response

  Date: 04/10/2025

  This letter is submitted on behalf of Georgia Northwestern Technical College
  (GNTC), which hereby responds to the Consumer’s rebuttal in Complaint ********.
  The Consumer has not identified the ******* customer service technician with whom
  she spoke. As that call was not recorded or otherwise notated, the contents of that call
  also cannot be verified. GNTC nonetheless had its Chief Information Officer
  thoroughly investigate this matter. The CIO found no problems with either the
  student’s individual account or the ********** online system. Furthermore, no other
  student enrolled at GNTC during the relevant time frame reported a similar
  problem. A ******* representative was present (virtually) when GNTC conferenced
  via ***** with the Consumer in December, 2024. At that time, ******* indicated
  that they also were not able to identify any issues.
  Regarding accommodations, GNTC restates its position that it complies with
  the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and
  the Civil Rights Restoration Act. It was the responsibility of the student or their
  parent to request any proposed accommodations as GNTC had no way of knowing of
  any disability condition that would require accommodations, particularly for a student
  taking classes online.
  Among its several accreditations, GNTC is accredited by The National Alliance
  of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (NACEP), a professional organization for
  college and high school partnerships offering college courses in American high
  schools. GNTC is well experienced in offering online and in-person courses to Dual
  Enrollment high school students. GNTC regrets that the student in question had a
  negative experience. However, the issues of which Consumer complains could not be
  found in either the individual student account or the ********** system, nor have
  they been reported by any other students. GNTC remains committed to student
  success.

  
  Respectfully submitted,

  
  ** *****
  ***** ** *****
  Senior Staff Attorney
  Technical College System of Georgia
  ************
  ***************

  Customer Answer

  Date: 04/10/2025

  
  
  Complaint: ********
  
  
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  While I appreciate the continued effort to skew the facts of the situation, I am attaching here two screenshots that show that GNTC is in fact aware of the screen share and recording related to an assignment that disappeared during a GNTC-mandated support call with *******. Because the instructor initiated this support ticket, we do not have access to the transcript or recording (*******'s policy is to protect the instructor's privacy, not the student's). 
  
  Also, as previously noted many times, we do not believe the issue lies solely within *******. There are numerous reports from other students AND INSTRUCTORS who have experienced very similar difficulties with ********** losing or simply not recording completed work. 
  
  Regarding accommodations, we will hold to the statement that we were never asked to disclose anything during the abbreviated application process for the dual enrollment program with GNTC. During our in-person orientation with GNTC, there was zero mention of accommodations or making the instructors or faculty aware beyond what would be noted in the high school students' files.

  Accommodations aside, any instructor who can complete an entire semester's class without ever making contact with any student (online, in-person, with accommodations or not) when there is supposedly this much missing work is failing to actually show up for their job. We have ONE email from the pre cal instructor from June, in the May-July semester, prompting for a Chapter 6 test that was past due. In that one, singular email there is zero mention of any other past due work prior to the test, and there was no followup after my son responded to say he completed it. If that test, and all of the other work was never received by this instructor, there should have been additional communication. The same is true of the Econ class. If that instructor only ever saw or recorded my son's discussion assignments each week, but no other daily work or tests were ever recorded, there should have been some communication with the student. And there was absolutely nothing! 
  
  We will always and forever hold to the fact that my son completed all of his work for both of these online courses and was only informed of the supposed failure to submit what was asked of him when his failing grades were sent to the high school at the end of the semester. His guidance counselor also immediately reached out on behalf of him, stating emphatically that there had to be a system error because my son would never fail a class or fail to complete his assignments. And I have zero confidence in any CIO who simply investigates an email account as a means to disprove any technical issue with the larger system. 

  We will continue to dispute all communications and conclusions that repeatedly dismiss the facts and evidence of this situation.

  
  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  
  
  ***** ********