Most Dixie Heights High School junior and senior classes were not in the classroom Tuesday afternoon nor will they be for the next three days. The students earned high enough grades for them to be able to participate in "May Terms."
According to the assistant principal Larry Tibbs, this is an opportunity for kids to experience new skills.
"We have lots of different activities and certainly [there is] a learning aspect in most everything we do."
If you were to arrive on the school campus you might have seen teens running, cooking and building. A few of the activities were: grilling, softball, and building walls for a Habitat for Humanity project in Carrollton, Ky.
Junior Kristen Troyer explained what "May Terms" means to her. "It's like a motivation after CATS testing to really be able to do something fun. We don't have any class except for third period, but the teachers don't give us any homework."
According to Troyer's classmate, Hillary Jamison, students work to keep their grades passing in order to participate.
"There's a ton of people that I know that were failing and were really motivated to get out of class for 'May Terms.'"
Who would not want to participate play sports, laugh with friends, hear the sizzle of the lunch you are grilling over a fiery charcoal grill during perfect weather. And knowing that the group around the corner building a house can smell the aroma of your savory smoke as it lingers like a low-level cloud.
Senior Cari Roberts smiled, "I made those burgers there. So I guess I learned that new."
Even working up a sweat while pounding nails into the future walls for somebody's new Kentucky Habitat for Humanity home seemed rewarding to Troyer.
"I think actually we're going to set it up up there," Troyer pointed towards the practice football field, "but we're never going to see it set up in the actual place where they're going to live in it."
The building project will take students three more days to complete. Then the walls will be shipped to the building site in Carrollton.
This is the third year the high school held "May Terms" and plans to continue the program.
