§ 6-710.Continuing education requirements.

Passing an exam once does not carry an interpreter through a whole career. Section 6-710 keeps skills current by tying continued standing on the statewide register to ongoing education. Every certified, provisionally certified, or registered foreign-language interpreter must complete five hours of approved continuing education each year, with at least two of those hours in professional responsibility. Certified Sign Language and Deaf Interpreters answer to a different, RID-based standard — 20 contact hours a year, at least 15 of them in Professional Studies — while non-certified Sign Language and Deaf Interpreters follow a Nebraska Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing standard of 12 clock hours, including 9 in Professional Studies and 1.5 in interpreter ethics.

Approved education has to come from monitored, verified activities — courses, conferences, workshops, or lectures — offered or endorsed by recognized bodies such as the Nebraska Judicial Branch, the Nebraska Association for Translators and Interpreters, the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators, the American Translators Association, or the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, along with accredited colleges and universities. Academic coursework converts into credit at a set rate, and partial attendance at any activity does not count.

Compliance runs on the calendar: each interpreter’s reporting year starts January 1 following the date they became certified, provisionally certified, or registered, and the compliance form is due no later than February 1 each year. Miss that requirement, and the consequence is direct — removal from the statewide register and no interpreting assignments until the hours get made up.