Paula Carroll has spent her life in the service of children. Beginning as a classroom teacher and reading specialist in the Napa Valley, she then moved into administration, serving in positions at the site, district, county and state levels in Napa, Sonoma, San Joaquin and Sacramento counties. In a large California school district (33,000 students), she was instrumental in managing mandated state assessments for a year-round district. She developed system-wide processes for correcting and standardizing data collection and analysis used by teachers to inform classroom practices to improve student achievement. She was invited to participate in numerous focus groups for the California Department of Education (CDE), was a member of the State’s Technical Advisory Group, and served on the California Educational Research Association (CERA) board for five years. Subsequently, she became Director of Special Projects for the San Joaquin County Office of Education where she led a team of writers, graphic artists, instructional designers and CDE educational consultants producing all assessment and accountability communications for stakeholder groups in communities, counties and schools. She was selected as the state contractor for mandated state physical fitness testing and managed the state’s Technical Advisory Group that ensures state assessments are credible, reliable and fair for all student subgroups. After retiring, she was hired by the CDE to develop and lead a team of State Assessment Fellows who developed assessment training materials and delivered staff development throughout the state. In addition, she consulted for three years for Educational Testing Service (ETS), the state’s assessment contractor, and served as Executive Director of the non-profit CERA for several years. She has lived in Medford for over four years with her husband Len, also a retired educator, and has been retired - until now!