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On October 8, 1998, the New York State Board of Regents, State Education Department (SED), Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID), awarded a grant to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, NY and the Monroe County #1 Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) of Rochester, NY. This grant was for a five-year period and ended June 30, 2003. 

At the end of the grant cycle NYSED designed a five-year contractual award for NTID and Monroe #1 BOCES to continue the work begun in 1998 with a major shift in focus and responsibility. The project is called the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) Project Preparation of Educational Interpreters (PEI).

NTID is the host site for the Center for the Preparation of Educational Interpreters.  Marilyn K. Mitchell is the Director, assisted by Jill Bray. This original grant provided a plan for the training leading to rediness for certification of educational interpreters in Pre-K-12th grade settings for the State of New York.  The new contractual award, Technical Assistance Center (TAC), has responsibilities to continue training (albeit reduced) through the four Regional Sites and more importantly, to create more degree programming and establish a State-wide infrastructure of Institutions of Higher Education (IHE). The partner IHEs have ASL and/or interpetation programs. The plan is to submit reviewed and approved learning outcomes for ASL 1 - 4 and Educational Interpreting courses to NYSED in the final year of the TAC Project. The recommendation will be that the outcomes be approved as standards for NYS IHEs. These outcomes have been developed by experts in the fields of ASL and Interpreting Education, reviewed by Infrastructure partners and national experts, as well as incorporated into curricula within some of NYS IHE programs.

The concept behind our goals and objectives began during the 1980's.  The leaders behind the initiative were;  Ross Stuckless, Joseph Avery, Alan Hurwitz, Jacqueline Bumbalo, Tom Neveldine, Philip Cronlund, Marion Eaton, Larry Forestal, Harry Karpinski, Phyllis Bader-Borel, Stephan Haimowitz, Kathy Hoffman, and David McCloskey. The result of their hard work was the New York State Guidelines for Educational Interpreting, one tool that has been helpful in assisting New York State with the creation of the educational interpreting Permanent Certification requirements.   A second publication that was used for background information was the Report of the National Task Force on Educational Interpreting (pages 1-19; pages 20-52), edited by E. Ross Stuckless, Joseph C. Avery, and T. Alan Hurwitz, in 1989. The Certification Regulations are currently moving through the appropriate channels and departments within the NYSED while we anxiously await the certification implementation.

The PEI grant and TAC Project Team members are Marty Nelson-Nasca, Director of the Deaf Education Program for Monroe County #1 BOCES, Dr. Laurie Brewer, Director for the NTID Center for Arts and Sciences (CAS), and Marilyn K. Mitchell, Director of the TAC and retired Associate Professor at NTID.

Through four Regional Sites (Western, Central/North/Hudson Valley, NYC, and Long Island), we located and registered more than 1,000 interpreters.  During the grant years, we provided performance and knowledge screenings, individualized Prescriptive Plans, intensice communication, professional development training (ASL classes, workshops, Silent Retreats, and mentoring) and created a database.  Several of the modules are available on this web site. Click here to go to the Online Module Portal.

The determination of strengths and areas needing professional development were learned through screenings called the educational Interprter Performance Assessment (EIPA) and the Educational Interpreter Knowledge Assessment (EIKA). Boys Town, Omaha, Nebraska, has created and copyright national valid and reliable tests, EIPA-Written Test and EIPA (performance). Therefore, NYS and the TAC will no longer identify our screenings as the EIPA and EIKA. However, TAC Regional Sites will continue to offer screenings to assist new intpreters realize their needs for professional development. Check with your Regional Site Coordinator for that information. Should you wish more information about the tests offered through Boys Town, go to www.classroominterpreting.com.

During three years of massice training, 2002 - 2005, an excess of over 40% of the 1000+ registered interpreters took advantage of  professional development opportunities.  Specifically, we assessed 869 interpreters (639 performance and 744 knowledge) to determine their professional needs. We served 426 interpreters through 629 workshops, 20 ASL classes, 7 Silent Retreats, and 71 mentoring experiences.

During the TAC contractual years, the Regional Sites will continue providing screenings to new and/or inactive interpreters, post-screenings to active interpreters and, as budget and personnel permit, limited professional development activities.  This support has and will continue to result in more highly skilled and knowledgeable interpreters to, in turn, facilitate quality education for the D/deaf, hard-of-hearing, and deafblind students. We are confident that at the point of implementation of certification, many interpreters will successfully meet the necessary criteria and achieve certification.

If you are a working educational interpreter and wish to learn more about the Regional Training Site in which you work and/or live, locate your county on the map at the Map of the Regions Page, find the corresponding Regional Training Site and click on that link. If you have not registered, please locate the region in which you are employed and contact the coordinator in that region.  Also, to learn how professional development activities will be managed during the TAC contractual years, 2003 - 2008, contact the Coordinator for your Regional Site. 

In 2005, the TAC Center began creating more degree programming with a new program at Mohawk Valley Community College (MVCC), expansion of the Interpretation Program at Suffolk County Community College (SCCC) and model programming with the ASL and Interpreting Education (ASLIE) Department, at NTID. Additionally, the Center and ASLIE Department hosted a successful Think Tank in July 2005 with approximately 40 representatives from NYS ASL an dinterpreting degree programs, NYSED, and external experts who facilitated the process for creating a State-wide Infrastructure of colleges and universities, as well as leading the process for creating standardized learning outcomes for ASL foundation courses and educational interpreting courses. The full Think Tank report is available here.

In December 2005, Drs Marty Taylor, Carol Patrie, and Kim Brown Kurz were contracted to develop the learning outcomes for ASL 1 - 4 and Educational Interpreting courses. Their outstanding work was proposed to the Infrastrcuture Partner Collaboration meeting, April 2006. For two days, 45 partners dialogued and negotiated feedback and changes to the learning outcomes documents. That feedback was incorporated, as appropriate, by the contractors. In November of 2006 (Educational Interpreting) and January 2007 (ASL), national experts reviewed and recommended further modifications to the learning outcomes. The results of that work will be to result in publications for stakeholders- particularly the Infrastructure Partners. Partners will incorporate outcomes appropriate to their curriculum and assist in determining the next step in the work of the contractors, Drs Taylor, Patrie and Brown Kurz. Again, the future plan will be to submit the reviewed and piloted outcomes to the NYSED for approval as standards for the State programming. Because there are no standards in the country for ASL and Educational Interpreting, it is expected that the work in NYS and TAC will have a national impact.

For further information about the work of the grant, contact the Site or Program Coordinators, check the FAQs, or contact the Director.

Marilyn K. Mitchell, MS, CSC, OIC: V/S, NIC Master
Director, TAC PEI
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Rochester Institute of Technology
52 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623-5604
(585) 475-6711 (V, TTY)
(585) 475-7957 (Fax)
mkmnss@rit.edu

Marilyn Mitchell's Biography

Jill Bray's Biography

Page last updated 01/25/07