College Challenges State In Move To End Nursing Program

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) - A Broward County college has challenged a move by the Florida Board of Nursing to end the school's nursing-education program because of low passage rates by graduates on licensure exams.

The Board of Nursing in May issued an order to "terminate" the nursing-education program at City College-Fort Lauderdale. The order said graduates' passage rate in 2014 was 60 percent.

But in a challenge filed at the Division of Administrative Hearings last Friday, the college said it had met benchmarks in a 2013 remediation plan and that the Board of Nursing should have approved a request for an additional year of probation.

"(The college) disputes and denies that it has not demonstrated adequate progress towards the graduate passage rate goal,'' the college said in a petition for an administrative hearing.

The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.