December 2023 graduates of the Seminole State College nursing program recently achieved a 100 percent pass rate on their National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX).

The NCLEX is an exam used to determine if recently graduated nursing students are safe to practice. Nurses are required to pass the NCLEX to earn licensure and legally practice nursing. In 2022, the Oklahoma Board of Nursing reported that the average pass rate of the NCLEX in the state was 78.67 percent, while the national average was 79.93 percent.

“We are so proud of the hard work and determination of these students,” SSC President Lana Reynolds said. “Our nursing faculty equip our graduates with the knowledge, skills and values they need to provide high-quality care to their patients.”

May graduates of the SSC nursing program achieved an 89 percent pass rate.

Despite the success of the last two cohorts, low pass rates in previous years resulted in the Oklahoma Board of Nursing placing the SSC nursing program on Conditional Approval in November of 2023. This means that the college cannot admit new students to its program until it can provide evidence that deficiencies have been corrected. The primary reason SSC was placed on Conditional Approval was three years of low NCLEX passage rates in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Like many programs across the state, SSC’s passage rates were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as high faculty turnover.

“We’ve taken several steps to bolster employee retention and ensure student success,” President Reynolds said.

Those steps include increasing starting nursing instructor pay by 32.5 percent since 2022, reducing the teacher-student ratio to 1:16 to give each student more individualized attention and a substantial increase to the nursing program’s institutional budget for resources and supplies. Additionally, the program received a congressionally directed grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in the amount of $1,050,000 in the fall of 2023. The grant, to be distributed over the next three years, is set to bring transformative changes to SSC’s nursing division, particularly focusing on the development and expansion of simulation labs.

Dr. Misty Gray, who was named SSC’s Director of Nursing in December, said, “We are updating our curriculum to reflect the latest evidence-based practices and innovations in the field. We are also expanding our clinical partnerships to provide our students with diverse and meaningful learning opportunities in different settings.”

SSC is currently collecting data and working on an appeal to the Board of Nursing, with the aim to reopen admissions for prospective nursing students in the near future.

“Our current nursing students will not be affected, and we are grateful that our program is returning to those pre-COVID passage rates,” President Reynolds said. “We are very proud of Director Dr. Misty Gray and the faculty and staff in the nursing department for their commitment to provide professional and personal support for our students.”