I’m basing that on what it was when and where I was in school (Montgomery County, MD, early 80s - mid 90s), perhaps the definitions of those were different when and where you went to school.
Personally, my elementary school went up to 5th grade and then to a middle school that was 6th - 8th, but I transferred out after 6th grade to an intermediate school, which was only 7th and 8th grades, then high school which was 9 - 12. However, my intermediate school has since become a middle school, and there are no more public intermediate schools in the county. Some of our elementary schools still go up to 6th grade, though.
Which did you go to, and did your school system differ from the definitions above?
I went to Jr. High as a 9th grader, the following year the district moved the 9th grade to the high schools. Still called it Jr. High. Don’t remember what they did with the 6th grade. (75-78)
My school district had a 7th-9th Junior HS system in place but the year I went into 10th grade, moving from the Jr High to the HS, they changed things into a Middle School system w/ 6th-8th at the MS and 9-12 at the HS.
K-3: Elementary school
4-6: Middle school (it has since been changed to also be Elementary school though no 6th grader likes being conceptually lumped in with 1st graders even if their school building is somewhere else)
7-8: Also “Middle school” per the school label but the kids liked to call it Junior high
9-12: High school
4-6 was absolute murder, bully-wise.
Edit: I just want to be clear that each grade range I mentioned was because each one was in a different school.
K-6 - Elementary
7-8 - Junior High School
9-12 - High School
In my case they were all in the same building (when I started – they added a wing for elementary when I was in 5th grade). My kindergarten classroom became the high school language lab. Junior High and High School were in the same building.
7th through 9th was Junior High with the credits from 9th grade going towards graduation.
There was limited choice of classes in 9th grade though and I went to class with mostly the same students that were in my 7th and 8th grade classes.
10th through 12th was High School with lots of choices for classes and not as much structure. With few exceptions classes could have students from all three grades in them. Most of my classes didn’t include former classmates unless we tried to get into the same class.
Scheduling was a nightmare so it wasn’t easy for my friends and me to get into the same classes.
The few years I went to a Catholic School
The school was 1st through 8th grades and the Catholic High School was 9th through 12th.
I don’t know if they called it Elementary or Primary or something else.
I don’t remember ever learning science or phys ed in Catholic school, when I switched over to public school I was way behind in science and phys ed but years ahead in everything in everything else.
For my son who went to the same schools in the 2000’s.
Elementary was 1st through 5th.
Middle School was 6th through 8th
High School was 9th through 12th.
In Middle School the 6th graders were somewhat segregated from the older classes.
There was no kindergarten in the school when I went. I know there was kindergarten somewhere but nobody I grew up with went there.
The kindergarten is on the same lot now as the Elementary school but it is a separate building.
Elementary school went from 1st grade to 6th grade in San Diego when I was a kid. Junior high school was 7th grade to 9th grade. High school was 10th grade to 12th grade. I moved to L.A. County after graduating jr. high; and found that there, jr. high was 7th grade and 8th grade and high school was 9th grade to 12th grade. So having already been to 9th grade, I missed the joys of being a high school freshman.
In San Diego and Lancaster, the schools were called ‘elementary school’, ‘junior high school’, and ‘high school’. ‘Grade school’ and ‘middle school’ seemed like old-fashioned terms they’d use back east or in the midwest or someplace.
I sent to a K-12 until 9th grade. K-6 were on one side of campus. 7-12 were on the other. 7th and 8th were considered junior high.
Everything in the area where we live now is called middle school. Nothing is called junior high or intermediate.
The regular (non-charter) middle school is 7th and 8th.
The charter middle school is 6th-8th.
The school my son goes to is 6th-12th. 6th-8th is considered middle school.
But keep in mind that Middle School and Junior High are different teaching philosophies even though school districts don’t always follow the naming conventions. Junior Highs generally have similar classes to a High School, with students going to a variety of classes with no smaller divisions. Middle Schools are divided into Clusters, essentially sub-schools, where smaller groups of students are assigned to a group of 3-4 teachers for all of their subjects.
In 1969 I started the 7th grade at Charles W. Woodward High School, also in Montgomery County Maryland. We didn’t have a junior high in the area yet, so grades 7-12 all went there. That worked out pretty well, seniors cut down the typical bullying of 7th graders from the 8th and 9th grade. We moved to Pennsylvania the next year so I didn’t go to the new junior high that was built nearby, but I went to 8th and 9th grade at Valley Forge Junior High. It was a couple of more years before I even heard of a middle school.
When I was in school (in rural Ohio), my district had two elementary schools (K-5), an intermediate school (6-8), and a high school (9-12). It’s since split things into an “early” elementary school (K-2), a “late” elementary school (3-4), an intermediate school (5-8), and a high school (9-12).
