Attachment 1 August 8, 2014 State of Michigan Department of Attorney General P.O, Box 30213 Lansing, Michigan 48909 RE: AG No: 2014-cp05021512562—A Angel Berry Attorney General Schuette: My name is Sharon Kandt and [am the Chief Examiner in the State of Michigan as appointed by the Michigan Association of Professional Court Reporters (MAPCR) and working as ‘an agent and on behalf of the National Court Reporter’s Association (NCRA) to administer the NNCRA examinations. NCRA has been extremely proactive in addressing this matter on their behalf as well as mine, but as this is my first opportunity to personally address the allegations | would like to. begin by categorically denying any wrongdoing and to further provide you with a brief bio of my education, background and training in the field of court reporting, | graduated court reporting school in 1975 and began my career as a freelance court reporter. In January of 1977 | was hired as an Official Court Reporter at the 41-A District Court where ! have enjoyed 37 years af employment, My experience consists of reporting depositions, municipal board meetings, public hearings on the Committee on Aging, Police & Fire Commission hearings, criminal confessions, and tens of thousands of court proceedings. In September of 2015 | will celebrate 40 years of court reporting and just about the same amount of time as an educator in the court reporting program through Ntacomb Community College. Currently | maintaln the position of Program Coordinator for that program, the longest running, and only remaining brick-and-mortar program in the State of Michigan where | oversee the education of students pursuing court reporting as a career. | attend numerous career fairs and job fairs to promote and educate people on the profession of court reporting. | currently hold. the position of Vice-President of the Michigan Association of Professional Court Reporters in which | am the committee chair of the Student/Testing/Education Committee. In the year 2013 | was the recipient of the NISOD Award through MCC and also the Award of Excellence by NCRA. Ihave spent my entire adult and professional life committed to the enhancement and preservation of the profession of court reporting and the education and training of students, therefore | find these unfounded allegations surprising, disturbing and unconscionable and regard them as a personal affront to my character, integrity and reputation.it may be helpful to understand the responsibilities of the Chief Examiner on test day as well as the procedures that are followed. y) 2 3) 4) 5) 6) n 8) 9) 10) a) 12) 4 2 3) Candidates check in at the registration desk where they are required to provide picture 1D and confirmation of registration. Candidates sign the Sign-In Roster, provided by NCRA, for the test or tests that have been previously registered for and are provided with an envelope for each “leg” of test ‘they will be taking with the instructions to affix their NCRA number as well as the test site number on the envelope/envelopes. Candidates are then directed to the test room where they set up their equipment including thelr steno machine, their laptop and/or their printer. {At the prescribed time of the test, the Chief Examiner enters the room, along with a monitor/proctor assigned to that roorn who is introduced to the candidates. ‘The test CD, which is provided by NCRA, is then played for all candidates which begins by explaining the rules and regulations which govern the test. After the instructions, the Chief Examiner pauses the CD and answers questions or concerns, any, posed by the candidates, At that time, the Chief Examiner administers the tests by CD, one leg at a time. In the RPR examination (which Ms. Berry registered for) there are three legs to the ‘exam, one at 180 wpm literary, one at 200 wom jury, and one at 225 wpm Q8A After all three tests are administered, the Chief Examiner provides a short break to all candidates before transcription begins. ‘The Chief Examiner exits the room (oftentimes to administer tests to additional groups. of candidates) and the monitor/proctor remains in the room at al times. Candidates are given 75 minutes to transcribe each leg of the test. As each candidate completes their test/tests, they are left with the monitor/proctor assigned to that room. ‘When all candidates have turned in their envelope/envelopes, one envelope for each eg of the test taken, the monitor/proctor delivers them to the Chief Examiner at which time they are placed in the provided NCRA mailing envelope and taken to UPS for delivery to the NCRA Office Testing procedures for candidates are as follows: Candidates listen to all preliminary instructions and ask questions, if any, before the test begins. Candidates then open or create a new file in their software and are instructed to write their NCRA number, test site number, and the specific test they are taking on their steno machine, As the testing begins, the candidate listens to the dictation and writes it stenographically which saves and stores the steno notes to a note file. These notes flles are saved electronically to the computer and possibly the steno machine {if not in testmode}. The steno notes can also be “captured on paper” if the steno machine has the capability of producing both paper notes and electronic notes, 4) Once the audio portion of the testing is completed, the second phase would be the transcription portion where the candidates convert their electronic note files to a text file in which the steno notes are converted to an English translation or text file, 5} The text file is then proofread and edited by the candidate, If necessary, in an attempt to create a final transcription with 95% accuracy. 6) When the candidate is ready to submit the test, they must print the final transcription or text along with their note file (the original steno notes). 7) Candidates then place their printed transcript, their printed electronic notes, and their paper notes, if any, in their NCRA envelope, making sure that their test site number as ‘well as their NCRA number is on the front of the envelope and that the type of test Is checked (Literary, Jury Charge, or Q&A). 8) The envelope/envelopes are presented to the monitor/proctor. 9} The monitor/proctor then watches the candidate remove all test flles from thelr steno machine, computer, and recycle bin at which time the candidate is free to leave, Hopefully, that gives an insight into the testing process, I would now like to begin to address Ms, Berry's allegations. The first | was aware of this it was on March 27, 2014 when the Executive Director of the Michigan Association of Professional Court Reporters received a certified letter addressed to Sharon Kandt. She called to ask permission to open it. | was shocked regarding the letter’s content requesting me to submit to a polygraph concerning the May 2013 exam (some 10 months later), due to the fact that | had no clue who this person was, the time lapse involved, and the absurdity of the allegations. I believe the Attorney General's Office has been provided a copy of that letter in which in part states, “Ms, Kandt, please understand that the purpose ofthis letter is not to accuse, but since you had access to the exam(s) in question there is a reasonable suspicion of your involvement in the described matter.” | believe just by the very nature of asking me to submit 10 a polygraph examination suggests an accusation of wrongdoing, However, her accusations do not end there. twas brought to my attention that Ms. Berry presented herself to the Macomb County Sheriff's Department, the Clinton Township Police Department and the MCC Campus Police, asking to file a criminal complaint against me. in all three venues she was denied, however the MCC Campus Police allowed her to file an “incident report” per their policies. Ms, Berry then proceeded to post defamatory statements, the first of which appeared con a court reporting website called Depoman, and although she did not identify herself as the author of that posting, the language was similar in content to the posting on the Super Pageswebsite where she states in part, "Ms. Kandt is an embarrassment to the court reporting profession. NCRA entrusted her with the duty of administering these very important tests and she abused that trust by tampering with test results.” And in the last line of that posting was the very concerning, unveiled threat of "'m giving Ms. Kandt an opportunity to put her affairs in order, to be a woman and come clean to the NCRA about what she has done quietly or I'm going to help her loudly.” (See Attachment A) ‘The administration at Macomb Community College was so concerned with the language in this website posting, they ordered “police presence” at the May 2014 test site asa precautionary measure. In that same posting Ms. Berry states that “! doubt she acts alone" indicating some type of conspiracy and that “Ms. Kandt knows exactly who { am.” | categorically deny knowing Ms. Berry, ever having met her except for maybe greeting her at the exam site, ever seeing her before this date or after this date, and when asked was unable to give a description of her to the campus poli. tn Paragraph | of Ms. Berry’s June 30, 2014 response she states that it seems strange that the May and August 2013 test were not compared. believe they have subsequently been compared by NCRA and the opinion still stands that these notes were written by the samme reporter. In Paragraph 2, Ms. Berry speaks of PDF files, Ms. Berry has never disclosed what specific CAT software she uses, so itis very difficult to answer this paragraph with specificity. What | can categorically state to this Attorney Generals Office is that | personally have NEVER. created a POF file from any CAT software. In Paragraph 3 of her response Ms, Berry states, "NCRA cites the fact that my NCRA number is on the test as meaning that it was a test that | created. |'m not sure who else’s number would have been on the test. The number is equivalent to aname.” That is right on point, The NCRA number is equivalent to a name and acts as a safety measure to ensure that no one at the test site knows the identity of the candidate or which test they produced creating anonymity for each candidate, The NCRA number appears at the top of her test and appears to be written from her steno machine as directed. In Paragraph 4 Ms. Berry speaks of the “line integrity” of the test being different than, hers and comments that it could be because NCRA sent her a copy in PDF format. Ms. Berry was responsible for printing copies of her electronic notes and final transcript, and then placing them along with her paper notes in a numbered and anonymous envelope. | then forwarded Ms. Berry's envelope along with the test envelopes for all of the other candidates to NCRA. it is my understanding that these original documents in their envelopes went to the graders and that NCRA only scanned and made exact copies of the notes and transcript for purposes ofreviewing Ms, Berry's allegations and responding to her complaint. | cannot understand why Ms, Berry does not recognize an exact copy of the printed transcript that she placed in her test envelope. Saragraph 5 seems to contain 2 BRAND NEW ALLEGATION, stating that | asked her and ther candidate for their fiash drive. It is very suspect that she would not have reported this in her previous complaints. It should also be noted that there have been no other reports or complaints of this type of activity from any other candidate, Once again, | categorically deny ‘this new alle “Attached Is a statement from a test candidate from the May 2013 test recal activity. (See Attachment 8} eno such In Paragraph 6 Ms. Berry enumerates a couple different ways to change an exam, one of ‘which is to scan an exam as a PDF file and then edit it, There would be no reason that anyone at the testing site would sabotage a candidate's test by this method or any other method. To accomplish what Ms. Berry is alleging, someone would have to confiscate her test envelope, grade the test by listening to the CD to determine whether It was a passed test or not, install the programs necessary to edit a PDF file, edit the test, destroy the original test and then place itin the envelope to be sent to NCRA. This is just ludicrous on so many levels, First, the steno notes would then not have matched the transcription which NCRA has verified in this case that both the electronic notes and the paper notes matched each other AND matched the transcription. We seldom have candidates that have both electronic notes and paper notes, but in this case it provides overwhelming evidence that her allegations are baseless. As faras| know, itis impossible to alter, change or edit electronic notes, The text can be changed but the notes would remain the same. The scheduled testing time for the RPR exam on May 4, 2023, was 10:00.a.m. and ifa candidate took and transcribed all three legs of the test they would have had until approximately 2:30 p.m, to turn in their test envelopes taking into account the time it takes to administer the tests and any restroom breaks. The UPS offices in Michigan close at 3:00 p.m. ‘on Saturdays. The test envelopes were delivered to my office by the monitors/proctors and personally delivered by me to the nearest UPS Office that very same day. (See Attachment C— my personal address redacted) ‘And last but not least, the closing Paragraph 7 in which Ms. Berry states that, “Unfortunately, it seems that NCRA cannot ensure the integrity of their exams and Ms. Kandt’s denial of wrongdoing is sufficient for them,” nothing could be further from the truth, NCRA has not relied on just my word but in addition has done a very thorough investigation of this matter, including having two subject-matter experts (court reporters} compare her steno notes to her transcription. The experts verified that "the paper notes, the electronic notes, and the transcriat were simultaneously produced by the same reporter,” that very same test that she submitted with her NCRA number affixed. { believe NCRA has provided the Attorney General's,Office overwhelming evidence that Ms. Berry's allegations are false. It seems that Ms. Berry is. the one asking to be believed on her word with no facts or evidence to support her claim. NCRA goes to great pains to ensure the integrity of their tests and everyone involved in the process is interested in the success of court reporters and for the preservation of the profession as a whole. it begs the question that | have been asking since the beginning of these allegations: What would be the motivation? ‘As there would be no reason, desire or motivation for anyone in this testing process to alter or tamper with a test or to sabotage anyone's attempt to become a Registered Professional Reporter, | respectfully request that the Attorney General's Office find Ms. Berry's allegations as meritless, to dismiss her complaint, and to restore the good name, integrity and reputation of myself and NCRA. Thanking you for your time, consideration and attention to this very serious matter, t remain, Very truly yours, Sharon Kandt