Lauren Seymour recounts her experience as a first year teacher dealing with a senior who could not pass the math California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) through no fault of her own. Math so overwhelmed the student that she shuddered every time her math teacher approached her. Team interventions for this student in both basic operations and CAHSEE prep resulted in the student taking the CAHSEE again, and failing by just one point. After taking the test once again, this student went on to graduate high school and succeed at enrolling in a community college, began working for a grant writer, and wrote a proposal that got her high school new computers. Seymour believes this student's story illustrates that no person can or should be defined simply by a test score. On the other hand, without the CAHSEE, this student would not have worked so hard to acquire minimum math skills necessary for graduation. Seymour cautions that as the country embraces high-stakes testing, perhaps it should be pointed out that sometimes the conversation veers too far into test scores, and too far away from the children themselves.