Cerritos College Praises Passage of Training for Realtime Writers Language

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 28, 2008

Media Contact:Aya Abelon, Public Affairs; (562) 860-2451 ext.2287

NORWALK, Calif. - August 28, 2008 - President George W. Bush signed into law the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which was passed by both houses of Congress last month, on August 14. Included in the Act is the Training for Realtime Writers language endorsed by The National Court Reporters Association, which provides competitive grants through Department of Education for court reporting schools to obtain grants to create and sustain captioning programs to train captioners.

The passage of this legislation is a major step in ensuring equal access to information for those who are deaf and hard-of-hearing. In addition, this legislation enables the growth of the court reporting profession in order to keep up with the increasing demand for trained realtime court reporters.  

This will allow us to train captioners to translate oral speech to written text per ADA, FCC, Telecommunications, and educational requirements,” says Vykki Morgan, who co-chairs the court reporting department along with Mary Balmages.  “It’s exactly what we wanted and we are just waiting to find out how much money will be appropriated and what the process will be to go out for the grants.”

Cerritos College court reporting program has been in existence since 1972 and the program graduates have an excellent reputation in the legal community. Successful program graduates work in courtrooms, work in and/or own deposition agencies, provide entertainment reporting, such as transcripts for the Academy Awards, do live captioning in classrooms and other venues, and caption national news broadcasts. Cerritos College offers a full program of day and evening classes, weekend classes and now an online program in court reporting. The Fall second 9-week session starts October 20.

Cerritos College serves as a comprehensive community college for southeastern Los Angeles County. Communities within the college’s district include Artesia, Bellflower, Cerritos, Downey, Hawaiian Gardens, La Mirada, Norwalk, and portions of Bell Gardens, Lakewood, Long Beach, Santa Fe Springs and South Gate. Cerritos College offers degrees and certificates in more than 200 areas of study in nine divisions. Annually, more than 1,200 students successfully complete their course of studies, and enrollment currently surpasses 20,000 students. Visit Cerritos College online at www.cerritos.edu.
 

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