For 40 minutes every Tuesday afternoon, things at Warren Central High School are different.

Principal Jamie Creel calls it “enrichment” — a chance for kids to get outside of their normal class schedule and concentrate for a few minutes on meeting their academic goals.

Those without cemented goals are nudged toward setting some.

“All the kids are involved in making themselves better in some area,” Creel said. “We’ve been doing this for about a month now. It’s not remedial, it’s enrichment.”

The period is carved out of the day by shortening all the other class periods by 5 minutes, Creel said.

For about 320 of Warren Central’s 1,133 students, it means going to one of 16 classrooms to review for Mississippi’s Subject Area Tests — four each in the required subjects of algebra, English, U.S. History and biology — which the kids will take in early May.

On Tuesday, in one English class, sophomores Stacy Thomas, 17, and Fredrica Smith, 16, and Cameron Upton, 17, worked together to fill-in Venn diagrams with the details gleaned from two stories — comparing and contrasting.

Algebra teacher Elizabeth Gullett had a group of students solving problems with graphing calculators.

“They do have to use those calculators on the test,” Gullett said while wrapping up a brief consult with freshman Amy Willis, 15, to finish a whole-group review at the board before the bell rang.

In another class, social studies teachers and coaches Matt Lum and Trey Banks read from the newspaper and then quizzed students orally, testing listening skills along with current and political events.

Students were assigned a subject based on their scores on “Case 21” benchmark tests devised by Vicksburg Warren School District administrators, said Staci Plunk, WCHS’ lead teacher.

“We didn’t target the lowest or the highest,” Plunk said. “We targeted the kids who seemed to have the most potential to move up the most in their scores, mostly the kids who are in the middle — the basics and proficients.”

Some students who were not assigned to a study group asked to go to one, Plunk said. “They want to be in there. They want to work on the skills they need to get a better score,” she said.

Kids who are not assigned to those classrooms might be found getting extra help in other courses, such as foreign language, or working with their Advanced Placement teachers to get ready for AP tests, held about the same time as the SATBs. Students who pass AP tests receive three units of college credit and also get a college course out of the way.

The rest of the students go to the auditorium or gym for a program or to hear a speaker, said Creel. Kids who have already passed the SATBs might listen to representatives from universities and junior colleges to help them figure out their post-high school goals and how to work toward them.

Other students might hear about vocational opportunities, Creel said.

Back in the classrooms, kids’ faces show how hard they are concentrating. There are no behavior disruptions, Plunk said.

“Students with behavior issues are not allowed to be in these groups,” Plunk said. “They’re not punished but they are assigned to the larger groups.”

AP teachers have met with as many as 20 students and as few as one.

AP history and chemistry teacher Theresa Vollor had two groups of students working in her classroom — 11 sophomores, nine of whom plan to take the AP history test, and eight or nine juniors.

“I’m helping them with test strategies, and even though it’s for the AP exam it is still going to help with the state test,” she said.

Vicksburg’s two junior high schools began similar periods last week, and officials at Vicksburg High School might implement it next year, said VWSD Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Swinford.

“The variety is immeasurable,” said Swinford, reached by phone in New York where she is attending a conference. “The kids are going where they know they need to go, working on what they know they need. They buy into it.”