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Baking, wood working, and repairing cars were just a few of the skills WACO students learned in their J-Term. Students at the WACO Community School District impressed the Wayland community when they showed off their various J-Term projects last Friday. Throughout the entire school, students showcased their week-long endeavors, which included various internship presentations, bakery samples, woodshop projects, and much more. Principal Tim Bartels tells KCII News how the idea of bringing big time projects came to this small school, “What we wanted to do is what we always try to do, and this is to give our students as many opportunities as we possibly can because we are a small school. We want to give them every advantage that we possibly can when they leave here to have more tools in their toolbelt. So, this is kind of where J-Term came from.”

One such project saw students of Drew Ayrit’s class working at a business in Wayland to fix a totaled car. Within a week, the students had a functioning car, minus the gas tank. Ayrit told KCII News how he felt of his student’s work, “I’m super proud of the kids, and just grateful to Adam Rose of Midwest Body and Frame for offering to host us and then he had us there all week. He could have been making money doing customer projects, but instead he really cared about giving kids an experience. Giving them an idea of what it’s like to work in the auto industry.” WACO will continue this tradition next January.