(a)

1. (1) The Department of Human Services or its appointed agency shall be responsible for administering the competency examination.
2. (2) The examination shall be based upon the training curriculum requirements specified in the Arkansas Long-Term Care Facility Nursing Assistant Training Curriculum.

(b)

1. (1) The examination will be in English.
2. (2) Translation of this examination will be offered, if needed.
3. (3) Additional accommodations can be made by the department or contractor based on a documented need, however, an additional fee may be required.

(c)

1. (1) The competency examination shall consist of two (2) components, a written or oral examination and a skills demonstration.
2. (2) Each examination candidate will be allowed to choose between a written or oral examination.
3. (3) The oral examination will be read from a prepared text in a neutral manner.

(d)

1. (1) Foreign language translation dictionaries must be shown to the registered nurse test observer at check-in and to the knowledge test proctor when entering the knowledge test room.
2. (2) No electronic dictionaries are allowed.

3. (3)

   1. (A) No definitions or instances of writing are allowed in the translation dictionary.
   2. (B) If there are any definitions or instances of writing, the translation dictionary will not be permitted to be used during testing.

(e)

1. (1) The written or oral component shall be developed from a pool of examination questions.
2. (2) Only a portion will be used in the exam.
3. (3) The skills demonstration shall consist of five (5) randomly selected questions drawn from a pool of tasks ranked based on the level of difficulty.

(h)

1. (1) The skills demonstration component may be proctored by facility or training site personnel, RNs as described above, if secure, standardized, and scored by the contractor approved by the department.
2. (2) Proctoring will not be approved in facilities prohibited as specified in 20 CAR § 403-402.

(i)

1. (1) To complete the competency examination successfully, an individual must pass both the written or oral examination and the skills demonstration.
2. (2) If an individual does not complete the examination satisfactorily, they will be advised of areas which they did not pass and their right to take the examination two (2) more times.

(j)

1. (1) All candidates will be allowed up to three (3) attempts within a twelve-month period to successfully complete all portions of the competency examination.
2. (2) Failure after three (3) attempts will require retraining in order to qualify to sit for the competency examination.
3. (3) An individual has twelve (12) months to successfully pass the test after retraining.

(k)

1. (1) Any trainee who is employed by any long-term care facility and fails any portion of the competency examination after three (3) attempts is prohibited from providing nursing services to residents in a long-term care facility.
2. (2) Based on the program rules, these individuals may maintain their employment status if they reenroll in a new training program.
3. (3) They would be required to follow the program implementation requirements of completing the first sixteen (16) hours (Part I) of training, prior to direct resident contact, and can only be assigned job duties thereafter in which they have been deemed competent to perform as they complete the remainder of the full ninety (90) hours of training.
4. (4) Upon successful completion of their training, they should be scheduled for the next available competency examination.

(l)

1. (1) All individuals who successfully complete the examination shall be placed on the Certified Nursing Assistant/Employment Clearance Registry and issued a state certificate.
2. (2) Information on the registry shall be made available for public inquiry (see 20 CAR § 403-701 et seq.).