I went to junior high school in San Diego. Junior high was grades 7, 8 and 9. I went to high school in the L.A. Unified School District. I entered high school as a sophomore because LAUSD’s high schools were grades 9,10, 11, and 12. (Yes, I missed out on the Freshman hazing. ) Here in Washington, the schools between elementary school and high school are called ‘middle schools’. I quick google of LAUSD shows a bunch of middle schools too.
Is there a difference between middle school and junior high school? If so, what?
Not really. It’s more of a function of what grades are part of what level and a general avoidance of the term “junior.” Speaking very broadly, junior high was/is 7-9. Middle school is 7-8, with 9 kicked up to high school.
(warning: anecdote). When I went to school (just after the invention of chalk), Jr High was 7-8 (same building as K-6, though there were other K-6 schools), and high school (different building) was 9-12.
Due to population shifts, a new high school was built 2 miles west of the old one, and the former high school is now the middle school (5-8) My K-8 school now just does grades 2-4
There is, and was, more variation than consistency. I was in two different junior highs in the 70s because our family moved. One had 7th and 8th grades only. The other had 7th thru 9th. “Middle school” is a term much more in use nowadays. The second junior high I mentioned has been relabeled a middle school. Same grade range. I’ve known a few middle schools to have 6th grade included.
In my town (NY state), the private school called it “middle school,” and it was grades 6, 7, and 8.
The public school called it “junior high school,” and it was grades 7 and 8.
(For those that include grade 9 for either of these, what do they call “freshmen” — 9th graders, or first-year-of-high-school 10th graders? Or do they just not use the term at all?)
Former school board member here–at least as I could tell there isn’t any national consistency, other than junior high used to be the most commonly used term, and because many trends in public education follow examples set elsewhere, at some point as far back as the late 1970s many systems started switching to middle school instead of junior high, the implementation of this switch has varied considerably from state to state. Within a given State it is usually consistent across the board because the State Boards of Education typically have enough power to set certain standard guidelines, but even that isn’t universal in all 50 states.
When I was to school “Elementary” school was 1st through 6th grade (no Kindergarten, which I believe my home district implemented in the 80s), “Junior High” was 7th through 9th, and High School was 10th through 12th. This appears to be a relatively “uncommon” configuration, a lot of systems did Junior High as either only 7th and 8th, or 6th through 8th. Even more uncommon is my system actually started your “academic record” for High School in your 9th grade year. Meaning you technically did one year of High School in the Junior High. I believe the standard in Virginia when I was growing up was that your Junior High was just grades 7 and 8, but (and I’m not sure), because I grew up in a very rural district I think maybe we housed 9th grade in the Middle School building due to the district not having building space otherwise.
The most common setups I see now are Middle School is the name, and it usually always goes no higher than 8th grade, and it varies from place to place as to whether it includes 6th grade or not.
When I was in a k-6 elementary (1980s), the next step was Junior High in 7th grade. But they re-configured the schools and when I got to be in 6th grade we went to Middle School with the 7th and 8th graders.
I went to elementary school in grades 1-6. I did 7th grade at school with grades 7-12, there was no Jr. High in the area yet. The next year we moved and I went to 8th and 9th grade at a conventional grade 7-9 Jr. High. The next year I went to 10th grade at a conventional grade 10-12 High school. Then I went to a private school for grades 11-12. That school had students from 9th grade age up to some attending post High school classes. Based on my experience I would say different groupings of grade divisions is more based on convenience than effective education, as is the idea of age-grade groupings. But any system is likely to fall short of being either practical or ideal.
When I started school elementary was K-8 High school was 9-12. Now when my older brothers and sisters started school elementary was 1-8. Infact the new school only had 8 classrooms.
The school I went to way back in the Seventies combined elementary & junior high because there weren’t enough students nearby to warrant a separate junior high. Junior high students did get their own floor, though. Elementary was 1–4 and junior high 5–8 with high school students being bussed an extra ~10 miles to the nearest large town.
We moved ~900 miles between grades 5 & 6 so my getting introduced to junior high early was a good thing. After the move, I went to a public middle school in NY state, grades 6–8.
I started in a school system that had K-6 in one school, and 7-8 as junior high - in the same building as the high school. For 8th grade, I moved to a district that did K-4 as elementary , 5-8 (I think) as Middle, and 9-12 has High. So I went from the elementary school to junior high (in the high school building), to middle school and then to high school, which was a somewhat odd progression
I don’t think there is any consistency at all. In my school district there are several schools serving grades K through 6 (or pre-K through 6), two serving 7 & 8, and one high school serving 9 through 12.
One of the 7-8 schools is called the junior high school. The other is called the middle school (actual names). There is functionally no difference between them; they simply serve different areas of the city.
The district my kid actually attends has one middle school serving grades 7 & 8. Next year they will be serving grades 6, 7, & 8. The name will not change.
In theory, there is a difference in the way classes are organized between Middle and Junior High schools, but it’s not followed always in practice.
Elementary schools generally run with a class with one teacher all the time. High school students travel from class to class, changing teachers for each subject but not staying with a set group of students. Jr High generally follow the high school model, but middle schools often use clusters, keeping a portion of a class together with a team of teachers that cover the major subjects. In summary, Jr High is more subject oriented, Middle School is more student oriented.
In practice, this philosophy isn’t always held and names are just names. But it originated as a different educational paradigm.
For anyone who cares, in my part of Europe, kindergarten to sixth grade is primary (one school), and seventh grade to twelfth is secondary (another school). Except they’re not grades, they’re cycles.
In elementary school (K-6) we had one teacher for the whole year, and stayed in one classroom – until 5th grade. In 5th and 6th grades we had our ‘home room’ for the first half of the day, and went to other classrooms in the afternoon. Junior high and high school, you were in a different classroom for each subject, as expected.
At the regular high school, 10th graders were considered sophomores, 11th grade juniors, 12th grade seniors. Back in 9th grade at the jr. high 9th graders would not be called freshman. My kids went to middle school and high school with grade 9-12 and were called freshman in 9th grade, but rarely as those designations have fallen into general disuse around here.
Mid-late 70’s for me. My 9th grade year was at the Jr High, the following year, the 9th grade was shifted to the high school along with the incoming 10th.
) Here in Washington, the schools between elementary school and high school are called ‘middle schools’. I quick google of LAUSD shows a bunch of middle schools too.