#SOLC - March 3

I still continue to think about relationships in this slice...

The past two weeks have been PARCC assessments for my school district, and it has required "all hands on deck." So, I've had the good fortune to do these assessments with someone who has some testing modifications, and I have had a blast!!!

Yes, you read that correctly. Every day I have helped to administer an assessment to Kay (not her real name), I have ended up saying, "What a hoot and a half that was!"  And no, I'm not referring to the actual assessment. Instead, I mean my time with Kay during breaks and after she completed her work each day.

She is a student I might not have otherwise known, if we hadn't been thrown together for the PARCC.  Let me rephrase that - I knew who she was because I have the pleasure of spending time in her teacher's classroom as a literacy coach. But to really know her - it took the PARCC to make that happen.

Kay and I have developed such a fun relationship these past two weeks. She is never short of topics for conversation, and I have learned quite a bit. Things such as:

• How her mom adds extensions into her hair by beginning with a "box" braid, and the fact that it takes multiple days to finish the entire process.
• The best place to shop if you want to buy boots with zippers on both sides of the leg (only 1 is decorative and the other one truly works).
• The magical draw of The Princess Diaries movies -- seems it encourages some young ladies to stay up way, way, way past their bedtime when they are in the middle of a marathon.
• Chocolate has magical powers to help concentration so I guess it's a good thing Kay noticed the container of chocolate in my office!
• The difficulties of having to move to 3 different cities, and how important it is to find a place where extended family resides.
• Food - this topic could be a post all by itself.
• The excitement of a planned shopping trip; we had much we could share together around this topic.

We always finished our assessment well before her homeroom was done, so there was much time for all of this rich conversation. I have loved our time together; we have one more test tomorrow, and I think I will have a little bit of "Kay-withdrawal" after that. The relationship that we forged was a fun one, and I will always smile when I think of out time together.


For more slices, head on over to our gracious hosts at Two Writing Teachers to read what others have written.