School Systems

[Addison]

One of my more educated beta-readers of my story said that he found things about the school setting that didn't seem solid. Realistic. The points he made did make sense and I want to make sure that what I wrote are valid as is or could work if twisted.

1. School Curriculum/Specified Programs of Study. Right now I have the bell schedule in A days and B days, each day has seven periods, different classes each day. Friday is Elective day, a.k.a Specialty Classes. In this case the specialty is magic. With some specialties, magic, culinary, construction, their math and science classes can have twists to fit. Like for culinary specialty instead of algebra and/or calculus they instead learn culinary mathematics. For construction they learn complete volumes, square footage, masses and such. Magic they learn the proper algorithm to conjure a cyclops. {Shrug emoticon) Does that kind of schedule make sense or does it need twirking?

2. Student Housing: True this is a public high school. The only thing is the protagonist lives outside the school zone, but their test scores place them in the high school, far beyond what their local education programs can meet. The high school the character IS attending is the best in the state. Hundreds of students apply and test into the school's standards but only so many get accepted. Would such a high school have dorms? Or some sort of dorm house? Right now that's what the character is in. But with what my beta-reader said I'll either move him to a Hostel or maybe have him signed into some...Transfer Student Host House. Any ideas for this?

Other smaller things that don't require so much description is: The school shares a border with a Preservation. As it has a Specialty for Zoology/Animal Husbandry it makes sense, as does the stable-menagerie. The only other thing he was skeptical of was the good cafeteria food. If you remember your own high school, you know anything flavorful, edible and filling is a never-to-be-realized-dream. I just made that dream realized in the story.

So, does an A day, B day, Specialty Friday class schedule make sense? And how/where would an out of area transfer student live to attend the school?

 

[Heliotrope]

Hi! I teach at a public High School, so maybe I can help a bit.

If it were a private boarding school it would have dorms, in which case all the students (or most of the students) would live on campus… Think Hogwarts, or Montgomery Bell Academy from The Dead Poets Society. If this is not a private prep school (you mentioned it was a public school) then they would not typically have dorms. Instead the students would be billeted to host families, and they would live in the home of the host family. Here in my town in rural BC Canada we have a Junior Hockey team. The hockey players are between the ages of 15-18. Most of them attend the local High School, but they are not from the area. They have been chosen for the hockey team because of their exceptional hockey skills, but they are not all from my town, so they live with host families. The same goes for exchange students. This is probably more in line with what is going on with your character.

He/she would be accepted to the school. There would be a list of local families that are willing to take exchange students. These families do get paid a stipend for taking students, usually to cover the cost of room and board. Some homes are really great, some are not so great. I know with our hockey players some live with older couples who no longer have kids and dote on them like crazy. Others families have five kids of their own, and only provide a tiny room in the basement and barely give them enough to eat (not even kidding. It does happen). So yeah, some people really take advantage of the system. These people are also responsible for making sure the students get to school on time, are picked up from practice etc. Like I said, many are really good, others expect the kids to look after themselves.

Having good cafeteria food is a stretch, honestly. Again, if it were a private school, with dorms, where kids are paying tens of thousands of dollars to attend, then maybe. But typically, in public school, there just isn't the funding for that. They try to feed the kids food that is quick and relatively nourishing for as cheap as possible. If you had horticulture at your school, and the kids grew and prepared their own food, then maybe it might work.

Funding is always an issue at public schools. You only get so much money from the government. American and Canadian systems are different though. In America I think better performing schools do get more funding than lower performing schools, where in Canada you get funding per kid, regardless of how your school performs. So a northern rural school of mostly aboriginal students that only has 20 kids will get the same amount of funding per kid as a school in the wealthiest district of downtown Toronto or Vancouver that has over a thousand students. Administrators have to then really weigh the options of how they are going to spend that money. A larger school needs more maintenance. They also need more supplies/books. They also have to spend a ton of money on teacher salaries/benefits. This all adds up. Having a public school spending money on things like a preservation, looking after animals etc is not very realistic. You could have it were the preservation is a privately run organization, and perhaps the students get volunteer hours or something of that effect.

 

[Heliotrope]

Oh, and the stipend for the host families would either need to come directly from her parents (paying them to look after her), or it would come from a combination of her parents and the school. If that is the case she would need to be on scholarship from the school, which would mean that the school receives special funding for such a program, either from a benefactor, a business with stakes in the magic program, or the government.

 

[Russ]

While I think Heliotrope's comments on how the Canadian school system works are bang on, they are quite north American centric.

I know that in some european countries dorms and dormitory type living accomodations are provided for out of area students attending high quality programs they have been accepted in.

Your school, of course, should be a reflection of the larger society it is part of. If you told us a bit more about that, it might help with brainstorming.

By the by, I cannot get enough of interesting school settings and stories in fantasy and SF.

 

[Addison]

The school is in Portland Oregon. A nice city, Northwest territory. I got the idea of my world's school's bell schedule from Portland's own Lincoln High School. I'm not sure what to say about that society, just that I miss it. (My family kept bouncing form Portland to Sacramento until settling in California.)

Thank you Heliotrope for the room and board help. What about Hostels? Could high school students live in one? Also I'm really trying to get my head around the classes/ class schedule. What's your opinion?

All other opinions and tips are also welcome everyone.

 

[Heliotrope]

For Russ' sake, I will try to be more specific

In Canada, kids staying in hostels would be very rare. Like, likely never, unless they come from a very bad background and have left home. This does happen sometimes, though they typically live with friends or relatives or in foster homes, not usually hostels. For kids to just be put up in hostels to attend school does not usually (if ever) happen. I'm not sure about the States.. maybe? I have no idea about that.

The class schedule sounds fine. AB days are pretty typical. A full elective day could work. Seven periods is a lot. In Canada we have anywhere from 45min to 1:15 periods, with a 15min "Nutritional break" and a 45min to 1hour lunch break. This means that on a 45min rotation they would have:

Block 1 8:20-9:05
Block 2 9:05-9:50
Nutritional break 9:50-10:05
Block 3 10:05-10:50
Block 4 10:50-11:35
Lunch Break 11:35-12:35
Block 5 12:35-1:20
Block 6 1:20-2:05

Type of deal. Again, schools in the states may do shorter blocks than that, or have longer days maybe?

 

[Ireth]

I've lived in Canada my whole life, went through thirteen years of elementary/junior high/high school (I'm almost 26, btw), and I have never once had a "nutritional break". We just had breaks between some classes, five or ten minutes at most. We typically had eight blocks or "periods" in junior high school, and five in high school. School started at 8:50 am and let out at 3:30 pm. Morning recess was around 10 am - 10:15, lunch break was 11:45 - 12:45, and afternoon recess was 2:00 - 2:15.

 

[Heliotrope]

Right, I have also lived in Canada my whole life. Different schools do different things in different districts. I was just giving an example. Plus Nutritional break is fairly new. I've been teaching ten years and I'd say it's come in more in the last 4-5 years.

 

[Nimue]

With some specialties, magic, culinary, construction, their math and science classes can have twists to fit. Like for culinary specialty instead of algebra and/or calculus they instead learn culinary mathematics. For construction they learn complete volumes, square footage, masses and such. Magic they learn the proper algorithm to conjure a cyclops. {Shrug emoticon)

Lot of good input here--I did want to say that I think this part sounds a little too specialized. This would multiply the amount of curriculum, and realistically the number of teachers (presuming that they have experience in each of these fields. You'd need someone with a background both in mathematics and cooking to teach the culinary math class.) How are grades and challenge curves normalized across these varying fields? Is culinary mathematics realistically as challenging as calculus? Also, at a high school level you want kids to take straight math even if they're really interested in English. They may end up discovering new interests, and a broad base of studies can be really important.

That having been said... it's a magical school setting. It really is up to you how realistic its programs and its budget are! Just match your worldbuilding to the tone of the story and your writing.

 

[AkamaruGames]

While having an exact schedule is a nice detail, it is often an unnecessary one. None of your readers are going to be harping about what exact time a class was unless for some reason time is a very important aspect of the story itself (for example if several story lines are happening at the same time and you need to keep track of where each one is at a specific time). Usually it isn't, so I wouldn't worry about it. Show the characters in whatever classes you feel add to the atmosphere of your story and that should be enough. As Heliotrope mentioned Hogwarts for example, you never know what time they are taking classes or even how many classes they have. They just are in classes when they need to be at sometime during the day, and that's fine.

As for lunch, I have never really understood how much everyone always complains about them. I always loved my school lunch. Mexican pizza, tacos, rib sandwiches, Shepard's pie, chicken nuggets, hamburgers, baked ziti, yum yum yum. I miss my high school cafeteria so much and if I could I would totally go back there to eat from time to time.