Court Reporting & Captioning Week was celebrated at the Realtime Center for Learning (RCL) by participating in the NCRA Students’ Speed Tests. RCL has locations in Garden City and Massapequa, N.Y.
“It was really easy for us to incorporate the dictations, word lists and directions for the students’ tests; they had the flexibility of being timed for any speed that a student had last passed. However, passing was 96 percent,” said Harriet Brenner-Gettleman, CMRS, CRI, director and owner of the RCL
“All participants would be named in the next JCR with those that passed being entered into a pool from which Gold, Silver and Bronze winners would be selected with various prizes commiserate with the appropriate level.”
NCRA sent the Literary and Q&A tests already timed out in 20 words with enough material so court reporting faculty who participated were able to give tests from 60 wpm up to 200 wpm in both categories. According to Brenner-Gettleman, RCL is a unique blend of one in-house night a week for accountability, dictation and test-giving along with having students do between 13 and 20 hours of homework and practice a week.
As such, participating in the NCRA students’ speed contest created a bit of a challenge since there are three speed classes on Tuesday nights and one high speed and two Theory classes on Thursday nights, explained Brenner-Gettleman.
“There were three students who took the test at 100 wpm, another student took it at 120 wpm, but I had to give them separately because they were all really in the same class,” she added.
Students who participated included: Debbie Babino; Gabrielle Carletti; Antonia Moy; Joe Altier; Lisa Previt; and Samantha Marshak.
“Court Reporting & Captioning Week is an opportunity for reminding the students they are part of a larger culture of excellence and dedication,” Brenner-Gettleman said. “We also remind them, if they haven’t already, to join both the New York State Association of Court Reporters and NCRA and to put the upcoming convention dates for both on their calendars.”
