I live in Canada, and we generally go to 2 schools in our teen and younger lives. Elementary school for the first 9, and high school for the back 4. But I keep hearing this crazy talk about grade school and middle school and junior high. Every american I know says grade 12 (or whatever) so what’s grade school. Well, the GQ is: What are all the different types (and what grades etc.).
ERK! I just did my absolute pet peeve. :mad: I just stated a question. Put a question mark after junior high. I feel bad now.
:mad: :mad: :mad:
I mean after “What’s grade school”, not after I keep hearing… …junior high.
There are old terms and new terms:
Old
grade school/elementary school (same thing) kindergarten to 6th grade
junior high school - 7th to 9th grades
senior high school - 10th to 12th grades
New
grade school/elementary school - kindergarten to 5th grade
middle school - 6th to 8th grades
high school - 9th to 12th grades
At least, this is how it is here in Baltimore MD and the surrounding areas.
Elementary scool = Kindergarten thru 5th
Middle School = 6th and 7th
Junior High = 8th and 9th
High School = 10th, 11th, 12th
Depending on the school system, there is junior high school (grades 7-9) or middle school (grades 6-8). I never understood why there are these two types of systems but I guess different P.T.A.'s feel differently about mixing age groups at this volatile juncture in their development (puberty).
My theory: if the high school is in a separate school district from the lower schools (think of a standard regional high schools setup), it will usually have 9-12 grades in it. If it is in the same school district, it is more likely to have 10-12 instead. Why? Because when the baby boomers kids grew up, those unified districts needed more school space. The easiest way to do that was to build an entire new school (junior high), and move 1 grade to it from both the middle school and the high school. Overcrowding problem solved. If the high school is in a different school district from the middle school, you can’t do this, so you just build more high schools, each with the full set of grades (9-12).
I grew up in Texas, and had never heard of high schools being in different districts from their feeding schools until I got to California. Is that widespread? Enough for it to be considered the norm?
FWIW, my district was:
K-6 = elementary school
7-9 = junior high
10-12 = high school
…which fits nicely with SmackFu’s theory.
For a handle on the ages of these grades, I believe the usual practice is for kids to start Kindergarten in the September after their fifth birthday. That’s what the standard was in my district, at least.
I grew up in Texas, and had never heard of high schools being in different districts from their feeding schools until I got to California. Is that widespread? Enough for it to be considered the norm?
FWIW, my district was:
K-6 = elementary school
7-9 = junior high
10-12 = high school
…which fits nicely with SmackFu’s theory. I believe, though, that there were some local districts that had 9-12 high schools. To my knowledge, all districts in the area were “unified” from K-12.
For a handle on the ages of these grades, I believe the usual practice is for kids to start Kindergarten in the September after their fifth birthday. That’s what the standard was in my district, at least.
Sorry about the double post. ::runs and hides::
The Massachusetts and Rhode Island system:
Elementary School: K through 5th
Middle School/Junior High (exact name depends on the town): 6, 7, 8
High School: 9 through 12
For the non-Americans (like SftD), I guess it should be pointed out that “high school” for the purposes of transcripts, college admission, etc. is grades 9-12, even if 9th grade is off at another campus.
At least, I believe that’s universal. Ninth grade was on all of my “high school” transcripts.
Some districts in Missouri have a somewhat different setup:
Elementary: K-4
5th and 6th Grade Center: 5-6 (you probably knew that)
Junior High: 7-8
High School: 9-12
I imagine all this subdividing was done to reduce overcrowding at the elementary level. Why else seperate fifth and sixth grades? I’m surprised at the local variation in how grades are divided.
When I was a wee tyke in the 80s and 90s, in Cleveland, the setup was elementary school for k-6 (or kindergarten and grade school 1-6), junior high for 7 and 8, and high school for 9-12. Almost all schools were a single category or less (typically one school for k-3 and another for 4-6), except for the School of Science, which was 6-12.
I understand that they’ve now changed it to three years of junior high (middle school, whatever), but I’m not sure if that’s 7-9 or 6-8.
We used to have in the public school system (70’s until at least the 80’s):
Grade or elementary school- up to grade 6 named PS # (for public school)
Junior High school-grades 7-9 named JHS #
High school- grades 9-12 -actually had a name
There were two reasons for 9th grade in high school and junior high.Some specialized high schools started their programs in 9th grade, and it was pretty common to go to a public high school after going to a 1-8th grade parochial school.
Now we have:
up to grade 5 PS# (some have 5th grade at another location)
grades 6-8 IS #(intermediate school)
grades 9-12 high school
This isn’t 100% correct at the 9-12 high school I attend, Palo Alto High School in sunny northern California:
Freshman(grade 9) year grades don’t factor into the University of California GPA system. Most private colleges don’t place much weight on freshman grades either. Suspensions or other major disciplinary action that occurs during freshman year do not need to be reported to colleges, unlike infractions that occur during grades 10-12.
Another Canadian here–and I went through three kinds of school in Toronto:
Public school/elementary school: K through grade 6
Senior public: grades 7 and 8
High school: grades 9 through 13
Yes, Ontario had a grade 13. As far as I know, it was the only province/state to have one. They’re doing away with it now.
My school was a little different. We had all grades from 1st up to 12th in the same building. Our designations were
Elementary: 1-6th grades
Middle/Junior High: 7-8th grades
High School: 9-12th grades
In Whitby, Ontario, in the <mumble>seventies</mumble> it was:
K-6:
“elementary” (official term)/“public” (vernacular term)
-A number of schools in various neighbourhoods throughout the town of Whitby. I suspect that they were theoretically within walking distance of students’ homes.
7,8:
“senior public” (both official and vernacular term)
-One large and fairly new school, with students bused in from all over Whitby and from neighbouring towns; a true hell school. I was glad to get out of there.
9-13 (yes, 13):
“secondary school” (official)/ “high school” (vernacular)
-Two long-established rival high-schools, Henry Street High School and Anderson Collegiate and Vocational Institute, one on either side of town.
We moved across town and I ended up living just up the street from Anderson CVI and going to Henry Street…
I always thought that they used the term “senior public” rather than “junior high” to make the students feel like they were at the top of the old heap rather than the bottom of a new one… 
There were also various private schools, such as Trafalgar Castle School.
This setup has changed greatly, due to increasing population if nothing else. In 1970 Whitby had 15 000 people; now it has 84 000. There is at least one more full-scale high-school, Seaton; and several more public schools. Whitby Senior Public School was renamed and is now a regular (K-6) public school. I think. I haven’t been near there for years.
Grade 13 was an optional year for students going on to university. It still exists, I think, but is called OAC and I’m not sure how it works now. The provincial government keeps rearranging the Ministry of Education, the school boards, and the schools. The teachers do NOT like the Ministry of Education.
In South Carolina we had even more schools. I guess it was because we were in a bigger city (Charleston and surrounding area’s). We had:
Elementary for grades Kindergarten though 2nd grade.
Intermediate School for grades 3rd though 5th
Middle School for grades 6th though 9th
And then High School with 9th though 12th
The hardest part was knowing what school you were going to the next year. The Intermediate and Middle schools had the same name so it had to specified which one, made life complicated for us 5th and 6th graders.