My elementary school had a gym that doubled as an auditorium. My junior high had a gym, a pool, a track and a baseball diamond. I grew up in northern Indiana.
My kids’ elementary school in San Diego doesn’t have a gym. They have PE outside. The middle school (5th + 6th) also mostly has PE outside, although they have a “multipurpose” room that has some gym equipment. I’m not sure about the next school (7th + 8th–our neighborhood is weird). I’ll find out next year.
We had a gymnasium in junior high. I do not recall either elementary school I attended having one.
I went to school in Orange County and we ate outside everyday unless it was raining or a smog day. On those days we ate in our classrooms, as my school had no cafeteria room. (grades K-6)
In junior high, there was a covered eating area, and some teachers would allow you to eat in their classrooms. If there was rain and high wind, you could eat in the gym. (grades 7-8)
In high school, there was another covered eating area, but it did not have nearly enough seats for everyone, so you had to find a sympathetic teacher who had the same lunch period as you or eat in the hallways. (grades 9-12)
The elementary school across the street has tables outside, and they have umbrellas for the rain. I suspect that the kids eat in the gym right next to the tables when the weather is bad enough. I know they eat there, since my dog likes to go to the tables at night to clean up their leftovers.
I went to elementary/middle/high school in San Diego, and this was true all the way through. I honestly don’t remembering eating indoors ever. I’m sure there were days when the weather was that bad, but I vaguely recall them just leaving the homerooms open so you could eat lunch there. But otherwise, there was no communal place that everyone could go to to eat that was indoors that I recall.
Well, if you come from a low-income family, they give you tickets for lunch, and you eat inside–a cafeteria, by nature, must be inside. I remember that I actually enjoyed that compared to what my mom would’ve made, but I always tried to hide my tickets.
At my son’s school, they go inside to get the hot food, but bring it outside to eat. The fruit/salad bar and drinks are set up outside and then taken in later on carts.
Nowadays each kid gets a number that the cafeteria lady punches into her register. No money or tickets involved and no one knows if your lunch was free or not.
There was definitely a cafeteria, but it was a series of booths where lunches were made/purchased, and a ton of those table-and-bench units, all of which was outside but under one large covered area (this was particularly true for middle school; don’t remember as much about elementary school). 3/4 of the school ate here while the other 1/4 ate on the open-area grounds (quad, planters, fields) that were permissable for lunch traffic. Which meant that when it rained, everyone was in this outside sitting/eating area (because there was no place else to hang out that didn’t get you wet). You could walk from one end of campus to the other and always stay out of the rain, but all classroom doors connected to the outside and the gym was never, from my recollection, used as an eating area because it was quite far from the kitchens and school lunch salespoints.
Most schools have a multipurpose room that serves as a lunch room. My grandchildren’s schools also serve a lunch.
I went to elementary school and Middle school in San Diego.
In Elementary school- our auditorium was set up into a makeshift cafeteria for lunch. But you ate outside. If it was raining- they’d setup t ables in the auditorium for lunch, or sometimes you ate in your classroom. (Thinking back- I’m not entirely sure why this happened, but I’m sure there was a reason why we couldn’t use the auditorium).
In Middle School- the cafeteria had a smallish indoor area- but if it was full and it was raining, you were S.O.L. and had to take shelter in the covered hallways.