Jr. High or Middle School?

[tvguy]

Where in CA? It was middle school up in Northern CA when my sister was in it. And it's Middle School down here in OC also.

And it's Intermediate school here in the Sacramento area, but like I posted, the names are interchangeable.

 

[DLgal]

And it's Intermediate school here in the Sacramento area, but like I posted, the names are interchangeable.

I know it's all the same, but the schools have actual names which include one of those three in the name.

 

[SteveH]

Growing up for me 70s/80s;

Kindergarten was Private​

Grade School 1-6​

Jr High 7-9​

Sr High 10-12​

My kids were

Grade K-5​

Middle 6-8​

High 9-12​

 

[ronandannette]

In my Canadian province it's Grades 1 - 6 = elementary, Grades 7 - 9 = junior high (may be offered in the same building as either an elementary school or high school or stand alone) and Grades 10 - 12 = high school. We also do not have the terms "freshman", "senior" etc.

Also kindergarten is kind of it's own separate thing. It's considered "early childhood education" and can take place in an elementary school but has different rules and governance. It can also be offered in private settings (either stand-alone or in private schools) but is tuition-free and completely publicly-funded wherever the service is delivered. Kindergarten runs either 1/2 days every day or full-days 3 days a week. It is also entirely optional for a child to attend kindergarten; mandatory attendance begins in Grade 1 no later than age 6.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Its been a minute since I was in 6th grade (like 30 years) but when I was in school 6-8th grade was called Jr. High. Now its seems everyone calls it middle school. Is this a regional thing? Or something that happened over the last 30 years for some reason I completely missed? Where I went to school in Illinois we had elementary school, jr. high and high school. My kids school district has EC (K-2), Elementary (3-5), Middle (6-8) and then high school. What is it called where you are?

Depends on how the grades are split up here
If it's 7th/8th grade, it's Jr High
If it starts earlier, like 5th or 6th, it's Middle School

Majority have shifted so they begin at either 5th or 6th grade so they are now Middle School. They run through 8th grade.

High Schools all begin with 9th Grade. As in, that's the year where your classes begin to count towards graduation credit. You may have opportunity to earn some credits early but those are special circumstances. At 9th Grade all classes count.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I am 46 years old and my middle school was a middle school. I believe the "jr high school" vs "middle school" name has to do with the grades includes in the school. My middle school was 6-8. As it was in 1987, so it is in 2022.

One of our local districts has a "intermediate school" for grades 5-8.

 

[chicagodisneyfan]

Way back when I was a kid
Elementary K-8
High School 9-12

 

[Praying Colonel]

I don't understand the bolded. Wouldn't it be a tough transition for which class entered High school?

Yes, I was thinking more about that particular class of 9th graders who thought they were going to be kings of the hill in Junior High but because of the change that year went to being bottom of the heap in HS.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

https://www.wgu.edu/blog/difference...nior-high-school2207.html#openSubscriberModal

 

[DLgal]

https://www.wgu.edu/blog/difference...nior-high-school2207.html#openSubscriberModal

This is a terribly inaccurate article, pretty much all the way through.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Growing up they moved our district from 7-9th grade, which they called Junior High, to 7th & 8th, which they called Middle School. 9th graders got sent to high school. Tough transition for the 9th graders.

Something sort of similar happened in our schools when I was growing up
It was a growth problem more than anything
I started out in a school that was 1-6, in a brand new school, brand new suburb. It grew so fast by the time I got to 5th grade, we were sent to an old school that was reopened just to hold 6th grade
Then we went to a 7/8 grade Jr High
We had a really strange set up where our 9th grade was sent to another stand alone, old facility, only grade in the building. We were in limbo. We were the final year where 9th grade did not count towards High School credits. We weren't Jr High, we weren't Middle School. We weren't anything. We were just 9th grade.
The next year I went to the High School and started 10th Grade.

That same year they reorganized the structure so my old elementary school was just Grades 1-5
The school where I attended 9th grade was renamed a Middle School and was now Grades 6-8 (we no longer had Jr High)
My High School welcomed not only my 10th grade class but also a 9th grade class at the same time.

 

[Meriweather]

I went to elementary school through 6th grade. Moved (same state,,,,CA) and then it was middle school 6-8.
High school 9-12

My kids were elementary through six, middle 7-8 and high school 9-12 (WA)

 

[FlightlessDuck]

This is a terribly inaccurate article, pretty much all the way through.

Yeah, maybe. Heck, maybe the names don't mean anything. Call the school what you want. Who knows.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

This is a terribly inaccurate article, pretty much all the way through.

The issue with the article is they assume schools are either or.
That you can't have a mixture.
I know for a fact that the lower grades in the middle school in our town fall in the Middle School Education bucket, sort of, with more of a focus towards collaborative learning but then the 8th grade doesn't. They are much more in line with the Jr High environment. Some of our 8th grade kids are even earning high school credits. Yet all of the, 6-8, are in the same facility.

 

[monsterkitty]

The school I attended was 6-9 and called Junior High.

Fast forward 8 years, I started teaching at this same school when I graduated from college and stayed there until I retired. Between the years I graduated from high school and when it started teaching, it became a middle school which is 6-8.

The town I went to college in was 6-7 middle school and 8-9 junior high. Now they are the "traditional" middle school of 6-8.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Way back when I was a kid
Elementary K-8
High School 9-12

That’s like what I was going to say.

I went to parochial school Grades 1-8. (No special name for later grades.) Then HS 9-12.

The public grades 6-8 where I grew up were called Junior High School.

Where my kids went to school grades 6-8 were known as Middle School.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Its been a minute since I was in 6th grade (like 30 years) but when I was in school 6-8th grade was called Jr. High. Now its seems everyone calls it middle school. Is this a regional thing? Or something that happened over the last 30 years for some reason I completely missed? Where I went to school in Illinois we had elementary school, jr. high and high school. My kids school district has EC (K-2), Elementary (3-5), Middle (6-8) and then high school. What is it called where you are?

When I was that age (many years ago), in northern CA, elementary school was K-6, Jr High was 7-8, and High School was 9-12.

About 20 years later they built a new school and called it a Middle School. It housed 3 grades. Depending on where the pupil load in the district was it was either grades 6, 7, and 8 OR grades 7, 8, and 9. Thus relieving excessive numbers of students in either the elementary school or high school.

My children went to the same school format that I did (K-6; 7-8; 9-12). This was in a different part of the state.

 

[Christine]

I went to K-5 (elementary).
Then my next school houses grades 7-9. They called in Junior High, but we knew that 9th grade was the real deal and the first year Senior High School.
10-12 was Senior High.

 

[tvguy]

Yeah, maybe. Heck, maybe the names don't mean anything. Call the school what you want. Who knows.

True. What was my Intermediate School (way back in 1969) no longer uses Intermediate School in it's name. It is now know as "Language Institute". It started using that name when they expanded from 7th and 8th grade, and they moved a neighboring K-6 school to the campus. What was the old K-6 school is now a "Primary" school with only 18 students. The school district I live in HAS sold off 2 high school campuses, and I think they have sold about 6 Elementary schools, but they have kept at least two campuses and turned them into offices for the district.
I don't understand if they have fewer and fewer students and are closing schools, why they need more administrative office space to run fewer schools.

 

[bcwife76]

In our school district? Neither exist. We have elementary (K-7) and high school (8-12). In some other towns around us they have elementary (k-5), middle (6-8) and high school (9-12).
Just to confuse things, when I was growing up the school district I was in had elementary (k-7), high school (8-12) and there were also some jr high schools (8-10).