Hi Corrina,
I see that your questions have been answered, so I'll just add a few details where there might be confusion or differences between schools. FYI, I went to public school in a suburb of Washington, D.C., and my husband went to a secular private school in New England. We both graduated in '85.
1. My public school, principal. His private school, head master.
3. When I was in school, elementary school was K-6, junior high was 7-9, and high school was 10-12. Then they switched our high school to 9-12. I was in the first 9th grade class to attend the high school.
6. The Vice-Principal was the chief disciplinarian. There was a registrar who would sign up new students, but also guidance counselors who you had to meet with to pick classes. My husband's private school had a Dean of Boys and a Dean of Girls who were the disciplinarians.
8. All of our books were supplied, including novels. We weren't allowed to write in them and had to return them when we were finished with them. The textbooks had a stamped chart inside the front cover where you were supposed to write your name, the condition in which you received the book, and the condition in which you returned it. I guess you could be fined if you ruined the book. We would all look to see which older students had had our books before us. We all made covers out of brown paper bags so we wouldn't scratch the covers of our textbooks, then we doodled all over our brown paper covers. My husband's private school rented the major textbooks to the students and sold the novels to them so that they could take notes in the books. We would get a list at the beginning of the school year telling us what supplies we needed to buy for each class. This included things like paper, pens, pencils, scissors, calculator for math class, notebooks, folders, and binders. Some teachers were pretty particular about only using spiral notebooks or only loose-leaf binders. We only used pencils for math. Otherwise, the teachers wanted everything written in ink. I was the generation just before word processing became widespread. I think it was junior year before my family had a home computer. Before that, all my essays were hand written in ink. If you made a mistake, you had to recopy the entire page.
9. There was a mix of kids who brought lunch and those who bought it from the cafeteria. In defense of moms who don't pack lunch for their teenagers, all of my kids know where the refrigerator and the pantry are. They pack their own lunches, even though I am nothing like Ellen.
In my day, there was one hot meal served at lunch, take it or leave it. Some were okay (I liked cheeseburger day and pizza day), and others I avoided. They published the menu each month, so you could plan which days to buy or not. In the inner cities, or in poor rural areas, there would be many more kids 'buying' lunch because the government provides free lunches (and breakfast if you arrive early enough to eat it) for kids of low-income parents.
11. Our school day was 7:50 to 2:45-ish, IIRC.
Regarding what the teachers would call the students, it would be first name except for emphasis or sarcasm. "Clark, could you write the proof for problem 17 on the board, please?" or "Ah, Miss Lane, how kind of you to grace us with your presence -- only ten minutes late!"
HTH
