St. Philips’s low nursing test passage rate results in conditional status and reassignment of faculty.
By Joyce Flores
St. Philip’s College President Adena Loston gave a report on the status of the associate degree in nursing mobility program to the Alamo Community College Board of Trustees Jan. 22.
The ADN mobility program is a program that allows licensed vocational nurses to study to become registered nurses.
She said that the last set of students admitted into the program graduated in December.
In July, Loston announced that the Texas Board of Nursing Examiners had placed the ADN mobility program on conditional status pending exam passage rates.
A letter by Katherine Thomas, executive director of the Texas board of Nursing, to the college in November said that nursing schools must have a pass rate of 80 percent on the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) for a school to remain accredited.
If a program falls below the 80 percent passage rate for two consecutive years, the program can be placed on conditional status.
In 2004 the board of Nurse Examiners for the state of Texas sent a letter to the program asking to evaluate them because their passage rate had dropped to 71.79 percent.
Upon being placed on conditional status, a program is not allowed to admit new students, states a letter dated Feb. 21 by Linda Rounds, president of the board of nurse examiners for the state of Texas.
The faculty at St. Phillip’s is requiring all students to pass the Health Education Inc. (HESI) practice exam before attempting the NCLEX-RN exam.
The NCLEX-RN exam is a pass or fail exam, and only students who have taken the exam for the first time are counted in the pass rate.
As of Jan. 22, 18 students had passed the HESI practice exam and 19 students were scheduled to retake the HESI practice exam.
The ADN faculty is no longer at St. Philip’s College. They have been reassigned to the ADN program at this college, said Matari Jones-Gunter, public relations director for St. Philip’s College.
The school is also recruiting students who graduated but never attempted the NCLEX-RN exam, in hopes that it will increase the passage rate.
The Ranger reported in October that the program was at a 77.8 percent passage rate.
When the faculty found out that their program had been placed on conditional status, the faculty began providing extra study sessions and requiring students to take the HESI practice test before attempting the NCLEX-RN, Jones-Gunter said.
But students who still need tutoring are being offered the Kaplan NCLEX-RN review, she said.
The tutoring is being offered at St. Philip’s College and is being taught by the chair of the department and the licensed vocational nurse faculty.
Loston said there are no more students in the program and that the school is now concentrating on tutoring the students who still need to take the NCLEX-RN exam.
The program, she said, is still under conditional status and is being restructured.