SHAOZHUO CUI The Roanoke Times

Katie Bullion runs toward the wall to escape her competitor during the ABCs of PE at Christiansburg Primary School. Katie's mother, Karen Bullion, enrolled her in three of Montgomery County's enrichment programs this summer.

SHAOZHUO CUI The Roanoke Times

Robyn Mann (right) and Katie Bullion celebrate after winning a game during the ABCs of PE, one of Montgomery County's summer enrichment programs.

CHRISTIANSBURG -- Katie Bullion ran through a Christiansburg Elementary School classroom holding a construction-paper Olympic torch. Her goal: Throw a discus, disguised as a paper plate, farther than her competitors.

Bullion, a soon-to-be third-grader at Auburn Elementary School, was one of five athletes in a mini Olympics during Amy Lunsford's summer enrichment course about ancient Rome.

Katie's mother, Karen Bullion, enrolled her in three of Montgomery County's enrichment programs this summer. The county started offering the parent-paid summer programs about 10 years ago as a way to engage students who would be without academics during summer break.

Enrichment programs are considered a staple of summertime offerings and focus on improving skills while challenging students. They also provide a respite from federal and state testing guidelines for their teachers, said Diane Naff, the Montgomery County schools' gifted coordinator.

"What's happened is teachers have had to pull back from some of the things they like to do, from some of their passions" during the regular school year, Naff said.

Teachers are sometimes bogged down in mandates, such as improving math and reading test scores, required through the federal No Child Left Behind legislation.

The short summer courses were created to break from the norm, decrease the usual class size and challenge students with visual and active lessons.

This year, 305 students in elementary and middle school registered for the 29 school-based summer classes offered in Montgomery County. Classes, ranging in scope from physical education to podcasting and "chocolate economics," still teach their lessons based on the state's Standards of Learning, Naff said.

Teachers receive a stipend for each class -- about $20 to $25 an hour depending on their experience -- but they also must plan the class length and lessons.

Although the classes are run through the county's gifted program, students don't have to be tested as accelerated to sign up. They do, however, have to pay.

Katie's classes, the ABCs of PE, Ancient Rome and Publisher's Palace, cost her mother a total $130. Bullion said she likes that the classes incorporate multiple lessons into one daylong or half-day course while still allowing her daughter to have fun.

"I don't have a lot of money, so it needs to be worth it," Bullion said.

Every day Katie returned home from the physical education class, she had a new game to play. Instructor Steve Shelton, a PE teacher at Christiansburg Elementary, said he wanted to show how the old gym class can still incorporate academics and SOLs.

"I like all subjects, but I like PE the most," Katie said while eating a snack during a class break one day. "I like that we get to do games that we don't do at my school."

During the Rome course, she created a rose and flower-pot mosaic. In that class, art became her favorite subject.

"I like it because I'm good at it," she said.

Lunsford, Katie's teacher and one of eight gifted-resource teachers in the county's elementary schools, said the Rome class was designed to engage those interests and teach students lessons that were slightly more advanced than their regular classes. When Lunsford taught third grade, she used the mini Olympics to teach about the ancient civilization. Smaller classes, she said, make it easier and can help students retain more of the information.

Bullion, a graduate of the county schools who works part time, said she wants Katie to perform well academically. After all, she has important Standards of Learning tests to pass in the coming year, she said.

"That's an awful lot of tests," Bullion said. "I figure if I cover all my bases she'll do pretty well.

"I just want to make sure that she's definitely prepared," she said.

Naff said the courses can help with that, although the school system has never measured if students in enrichment classes have improved SOL scores.

Third-graders are asked to pass their first state accountability exams, and while Katie's teacher last year determined she was a grade-level ahead in reading, she struggles in math.

That's where the mini Olympics could help. Using a tape measure to gauge the distance of her paper-plate throw, Katie left the faux sporting event ideally ahead of her third-grade classmates who will study the civilization next year.

"I don't like math, but this is fun," the 7-year-old said after throwing her paper plate about 58 inches down the hallway.