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Stenographic Institute was established in 1971 and has since been
owned and operated by practicing court reporters. It is a private
registered business school licensed by the New York State Education
Department.
Some
local accomplishments for the school and faculty include:
•
First school with computer transcription, 1980.
•
First videotaping of a deposition, 1981.
•
First school with realtime translation, 1984.
•
First broadcast captioning, Channel 4, 1990.
•
Graduates include the Administrative Reporter in the Eighth Judicial
District (based in Buffalo), and the owners of most
of the local freelance firms.
An
evening court reporting program is the only one offered by the school.
Classes are held from 7 to 9 p.m. There are at least six and at
times as many as eight class speed levels. Beginning students attend
on Tuesdays and Thursdays, upper level students on Mondays and Wednesdays.
The school is in continuous session except for ten days at Christmas/New
Year, one week in the summer, and four additional public holidays.
The
program is written for 26 months, although graduation is dependent
on passing the state-set final tests at 225 words per minute. It
includes basic and advanced machine writing theory, speed class
levels, computer applications, and courses in court procedures,
English, and legal and medical terminology. Students pass through
the speed level classes on the basis of weekly evaluation tests.
New
classes begin the first Tuesday of March and the first Tuesday after
Labor Day in September. Open houses are held in June, July and August
for the September class; and December, January and February for
the March class.
Stenographic's
strengths, which are unusual in court reporting programs, include:
•
All members of the reporting faculty are court reporters.
•
The theory used is designed specifically for court reporting, rather
than a more complicated version designed for non-judicial
purposes.
• While
speed is of secondary concern in theory levels (a thorough grasp
of theory
being more important than premature concern for speed), when
students do enter
speed classes there are sufficient speed levels that they
are always working in a comfortable range of speed.
• All
speed dictation, including two- and three-voice testimony, is live.
• Being
court reporters, members of the faculty realize the importance of
and insist
upon students being able to read analog paper notes as a
part of the learning
process.
• Most
importantly, there is absolute integrity of testing, so that when
a student
graduates they can be confident that they really can perform
at the graduation
level of 225 words per minute. Regrettably, the integrity
of speed tests is not something that can be assumed
of all reporting programs.
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