Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related High School questions

From what I gather after the fact, it was my DS's chosen mission in high school life to expand the mealtime horizons of his classmates. Hence 'field trips' to New York style delis, Mexican, Italian, Greek, Cajun, you name it.

He and his buddies got away with it by a fluke of scheduling. They had their 'free' period just before lunch and at least two teachers who had classes after lunch had a policy of taking attendance at the end of class instead of at the start and counted class participation as being present to turn in homework. (Methinks there was some bribery involved there, like bringing lunch back for the teacher.)

For that matter, one of those teachers gave DS an A for class participation even though he was asleep in class. DS didn't snore, his homework was in and he wasn't being his usual obnoxious self.

That's pretty much how lunch went for me, too. Only it was McD's, Jack in the Box, or Carl's Jr. instead. I drove, but it was usually just easier to stay on campus and bring food from home. Plus, for a nerd like me, lunch time was mainly used as a homework break for physics or government.

My last 2 high schools (of 3) were in really rural towns, so there was no opportunity to go off-campus for food. There wasn't a fast food place in the town. The town was so rural that some people drove tractors to the prom. We joked that a drive-by shooting went "clip clop clip clop bang bang." I don't recall any rules for driving. The student parking lot was first-come first-serve.

The drinking fountains always remind me of the 2nd high school. I stopped drinking from them because most of them had chewing tobacco in it. Blech.

Yep. Water fountains were always a no-no at my schools, too. One time, I tried to drink from one (this was middle school) and got a mouthful of what seemed to be rust. /need gagging gremlin/ But you don't know what people do to those things. They spit in them, shove trash in them, jump on them, sit on them, or most commonly clog them with half-chewed gum (welcome to california, folcs :p ). But then again, I'm also a bit OCD and germaphobic, so I have issues with that anyways.

In the 80s Kansas schools had a similar curriculum to any other school. It wasn't until the mid 90s that the state legislature began to have a problem with evolution being taught in science classes. Sex ed, etc. was never a problem. It isn't really bible-belt here, though, obviously, there are elected officials who wish it was more so.

When I was in high school in the 80's, sex ed wasn't its own class; it was a unit in biology class. The required courses (over four years of high school) were English, math, social studies (history mostly), science, and two years of physical education. Anyone who wanted to go to college would also take at least two years of a foreign language because the colleges all required that. Electives were things like music, art, home economics (cooking and sewing), shop (woodworking), auto mechanics, typing (yes, it was still a class in the eighties and most kids never learned how to type before high school because nobody had computers at home), psychology, economics, etc. We had seven class periods per day, so there was a lot of room for electives in addition to the core classes.

Journalism would be an elective--the journalism class participants would be the kids who wrote and edited the school newspaper, and there would be kids from all four grades in the same journalism class. BTW, the rules about freedom of the press don't apply to high school newspapers to the same degree that they do to adult newspapers.

I'm just dropping in to thank everyone for their responses. What a great resource!

And I have another question.

How is the school day typically broken up? ie a couple of periods of classes, then a break, a couple more, then lunch, then a couple more?

I also need help with the terminology. Is the first class of the day called Class 1? Period 1? What is the first break called? Snack? Recess? Break? I'm assuming the lunch break is called 'Lunch', but if I'm wrong, could you let me know? In Australia, we've done away with the afternoon break. Was it still a part of the typical American High School day in the eighties?

Many, many thanks to everyone who shared their experiences.

Corrina.

This will no doubt show my age, but I was in high school from '83-'87, so hopefully I'm in the range you're looking for.

For me high school consisted of two days, "A Day" and "B Day". Each one had four classes that were an hour and half long. We called them first period, second period, etc. (The B day was fifth period, sixth period...) We had a mini-break of roughly five minutes between classes to get to our lockers (and/or bathroom) and then the next class. Lunch came in the middle of the day.

I'm wracking my brain trying to remember how lunch worked because you either had first lunch or second lunch, each of them were 45 minutes long. We didn't have study hall or anything like that so I can only surmise that which lunch I had depended on when my third period class started. I think half of them picked up right after second period and the other half had the 45 minute break before starting.

Hope that helps.

I was in a rural school in Colorado in the 70s & my kids were in the school system in the 90s, so some of this might apply. In a tiny community, the junior and senior high might well be in the same building in order to share a gym, music room, art rooms, cafeteria, etc., even today (e.g. Rangely Jr.-Sr. High). But the kids would have their regular classes in different parts of the building so the senior high students wouldn't be mixing with the junior highers.

Also, cool stuff such as block schedules (which Sue S. mentioned) and calculus classes didn't occur in a tiny school in a poor community. In fact, journalism wasn't usually a class. It was a club, with kids who were committed to it meeting with a sponsor after school or in the evening to put out a school paper.

In the 70s, fighting didn't automatically draw a suspension, but by the 90s, it did. Even someone defending himself would automatically get a three-day suspension.

Lunch: no choices--just a specific meal that day, with the lunch menu posted in the local newspaper each week and given during the announcements during first period. After that, the teacher called for a show of hands of students who were taking hot lunch. In the cafeteria, you usually bought either a lunch ticket (punches for 5 days or 20 days, although there were single daily tickets as well), or a milk ticket, which is what the cold lunch kids got to have with their lunches. No soda machines or vending machines.

Also, FH, you asked about breaks. Normally the schedule is 6 or 7 periods with a half hour lunch break before, during, or after 4th period, depending on how many sections of lunch they had to run to give everyone a place to sit. The schedule used to be 6 periods per day with a 45 minute lunch period, so school ran from 8:30 to 3:30 pm, but when they decided to fit in an additional period, school ran from 7:30 to 3:00 pm, and lunch shrank to 1/2 hour. Periods are usually 50 or 55 minutes with a 5 minute passing period so students can go to their next class. The only break is for lunch.

In the 70s, the campus was always open, even though the only place you could get to during lunch was a convenience store. In the 90s, the campus was completely closed for everyone, and it has since changed to a mix, closed for freshmen & sophomores, and open for juniors & seniors.

Mine had different periods scheduled. The first Class of the day was typically called 1st Period. We also had a "floating bubble" which was a double period. It rotated each day so you didn't get stuck with a double gym period each Monday, for example.

Lunch was just called lunch. Lunch rotated too. Somedays I had 3 periods and then lunch, some days I had 3 periods, half of 4th period, lunch, then the rest of 4th period, some days I had the full 4 periods and then lunch.

But my school's class scheduling was a little weird. It changed ever so slightly each year while they tried to hone it to be better and better.

We had six periods a day. No breaks or recesses, unless you count a six-minute passing period as a break. Mostly we used that time to get to class, scramble for last minute papers and talk to friends. Our schedules were fixed, so that they stayed the same all year. We were also assigned lunches- first or second lunch, depending on what building your 4th period class was in. But then again, I went to a bigger school, so most likely there wouldn't be a need for more than one lunch. As far as the 80's time frame... I'm pretty sure there wasn't any sort of breaks then, either (or so said my parents). Then again, everything is location based. It might be different in the Midwest than it is here on West coast.

This was true in my school too. 6 - 45 minute periods with 45 minute lunch in the middle of the day and 5 minutes to run between each class (especially true for gym). 1/2 the school got first lunch (3 classes then lunch) and the other half got second lunch (4 classes then lunch). Also, like Sheilah, our Journalism class wasn't a class, but an afterschool 'Club'.

Sometimes, an upclass (11th or 12th grade) student could schedule a 'free' period at some point in the day and use it for extra lunch or studying. I used it to get out early on Fridays, because I was dating a guy in Canada. And that was one heck of a drive.

DC, I have no idea how you kept your schedule straight. That bubble thing sounds completely confusing.

Our sex ed was offered separate from Biology and was manditory for all sophomores (unless the parents objected). And was taught by someone who shouldn't have been teaching it. A coach or a math teacher or the typing/economics teacher. (you can tell how memorable it was) Not someone knowledgeable like a science teacher!

My apologies for placing Kansas in the Bible Belt. For some reason, I had it stuck in my head that the Bible Belt was a North/South belt in the center of the US comprising of Dakotas south through Texas (AKA the mid-west -- my apologies, if I've got THAT term wrong too). According to Wikipedia, the Bible Belt's basically another term for the South. (although I think my explanation looks more 'belt-like' than theirs )

It really was. It would be like Day 3, Bubble 1. Totally whacky.

Also, we didn't get breaks. We might have a study period where we didn't have class. We were supposed to use it to work on homework/studying. I only ever had 1 regularly scheduled study period in my class schedule. That was my senior year, because I was doing an internship program outside of the school. So I had one less "class" than other people.

Also, forgot to mention. We had Days. Days 1-6 if I remember correctly. It meant that the periods rotated. So math was not always the first class of the day, nor was it even the first class every Monday.

Talk about completely screwing with the students' heads! :p

My schools usually had 7 50 minute periods, with either 4th or 5th period being a lunch break, depending on your schedule, and 5 minutes between classes. I think the 2nd school had 2 lunch periods, and I know the third did. Both were smaller rural schools. Sex-ed was part of health, not biology, and health was a 1 semester course, as was choir and drivers ed. Journalism was both a class and extra-ciricular. The class was learning how to write for a paper with some articles. I remeber staying after school to proof-read (I was a copy editor) and help put the paper together.

Didn't realize that there was a Sex-Ed question floating around. My school had a Health Class. I think it was during sophomore year. Sex-Ed was covered in that class, as well as the chats about how bad drugs, drinking, and smoking are. But I had also had some Sex-Ed in my science classes two years prior in 8th grade. So Health was kind of a refresher/more detailed course.

Re sex-ed: in Jr. High, it was part of our P.E. (physical education) class, taught by the P.E. teacher, but in High School, there was an actual 1 semester course for it, but it was an elective, not required.

Hi again Corrina,

In my East Coast mid-80's suburban public high school, we had seven class periods of 50 minutes each with 5 minutes passing time between classes. Lunch would come after third or fourth period, depending on your class schedule, and that was the only break. And, yes, we referred to them as periods in conversation, as in "Let's ditch fifth period and go to McDonald's for lunch," or "What's for lunch? I've been starving since second period."

Sex-Ed = Art Class. Some of those kids were *sluts*. Not me, of course.

It wasn't required in high school. Took it in junior high as apart of a unit in science. There were a couple of lessons in various science classes over the years, and some assemblies. Otherwise you had to take health class or something.

I graduated in 1982. I'm actually surprised at the differences in this list.

• Anyone involved in a fight was suspended for 3-4 days, not just the instigator. That was the rule but I can't remember a single fight.
• Discipline was handled by one of the two vice-principals. Essentially, parents were contacted for any disciplinary action.
• Classes started at 7:35 and the school day ended at 2:15, though in my junior year the district almost went broke and dropped one hour of the day. Subsequent threats to discredit the school system by the state reinstated the six hour day.
• Sex-ed was still controversial and required parent approval for each student. It wasn't implemented in my district until a few years after I graduated.
• All of the districts in our area were junior (7,8,9) and Senior high (10,11,12). It was strange, though, that 9th grade (freshman) marks were part of the senior high records.
• In rural areas it is very common to have junior, senior and even grade schools on a single campus. I imagine it simplifies the bus routes.
• I had friends in high school in southern Indiana during the early 1980's and this is one thing that surprised me about schools in farming areas. When the spring hay was ready to be brought in the schools would take a few days off. I guess so many students would be absent that it made more sense to make it official and extend the school year by a few days than to have the low attendance.