FL S0526

Requires the Florida Department of Health to issue temporary provisional licenses to graduate registered nurses and graduate licensed practical nurses participating in graduate nursing preceptorships under clinical preceptor supervision

Programs with NCLEX passage rates more than 10 percentage points below the national average for comparable programs must, beginning August 1, 2026, offer a 3-month graduate nursing preceptorship including job shadowing, clinical training, and patient care in a hospital setting; the Florida Center for Nursing must establish preceptorship standards by January 1, 2026

Mandates that nursing education programs implement standardized admission criteria identifying students needing additional support, administer a national standardized NCLEX predictor exit exam (which cannot be the sole barrier to graduation), and establish remediation criteria for students who do not pass the exit exam

Authorizes the Department of Health to conduct onsite evaluations and inspections of approved and accredited nursing programs during business hours to ensure compliance, with refusal deemed a violation of legal obligation; requires program directors to post graduate passage rates on program websites

Strengthens accountability by requiring the Board of Nursing to deny applications from programs that have faced adverse action in other jurisdictions, terminate programs that fail to submit annual reports or meet remediation requirements, and removes the previous option to extend a program's probationary status beyond 2 calendar years