Simple Cards (Testing is Over!!)

I am so grateful to two of the ladies I work with.  

In the world of public schools, one of the most dreaded times of the year is testing in the spring.  As a teacher, there is anxiety about covering all of the material, hope that the kids do well, and exhaustion as the week (or two!) is finally over and you can look down the hill to June.  As the administrator in charge of the testing, it is the stuff nightmares are made of.

Over the span of my administrative career, I've been in charge of STAR testing (the California version of state assessment) more times than I want to remember.  I was mentored by folks who knew what they were doing (thankfully!) and by trial and error (lots of error!) I finally found a system that worked.  There are always changes, but nothing unconquerable.  I learned to work through Spring Break and get all my lists ready.  Three grade levels, 1100 kids, 250 of them with special accommodations, at least ten different testing booklets, 4 days of testing schedules, as well as 30 testing rooms and 60 teachers can be a bit intimidating.  But, with practice and patience, it's manageable.

When I first was given this wonderful responsibility, being the OCD and perfectionist type of person that I am, I didn't want anyone else's hands in it. At all.  That worked out well because at my previous site, that's the way it was done.  I did it all by myself.  Worked out fine, but man, that was one big job. I eventually learned to ask for help and had some great people there who jumped right in to assist. When I moved to my current campus I was so grateful that there were two people who were there to help me.  The great thing was was that they really do all the grunt work.  I did spend spring break with all of my lists (lots of lists!!) and by the time break was over, everything was planned out and ready to go.  That's when this amazing duo took over.  They sorted and counted and labeled and boxed and checked and filled in bubbles like you've never seen before.  They are also pretty OCD and perfectionistic, so it was a relationship made in heaven.

We had a few glitches this year (keeps ya humble!) and we're almost ready to pack everything up.  Every last box should be gone by Tuesday afternoon.  I'll be able to sleep again without waking up at 2 a.m. thinking I forgot something.  Well, at least forgot something about testing!  I'm sure some other stressful situation will take its place!  But before the last box is sealed, I want to make sure I say thank you in a meaningful way because I really am grateful and I REALLY couldn't have done it without them!

I got the idea for this card from The Twinery website.  I used leftover tags and scrapbooking paper.  I dug up a few tags I had on hand.  I glued the paper first, then used a sewing machine to sew around the edges of the paper.  I glued everything to a pre-made blank card (you can buy them at Michael's) and then tied the twine.  The "Thanks" was stamped on the tag.