Note: My memory is pretty bad, but this is based on my experience with schooling in Maine!
- The main character is 16 with a birthday in early May -- would it make sense for him to be a sophomore?
Yup yup! I was a sophomore at 16, with my birthday in November - With birthdays from September through October, I believe it was, students would start a year earlier than ones born later in the school year. So someone born in October would start grade school at 4 and turn 5 during that year, whereas I started at 5 and turned 6 that year!
- His best friend is a year and a half older (17 1/2, born in December), but considering he was held back a year, would he be a sophomore as well due to repeating a grade, or be a junior?
My math brain is turned off at the moment, but that sounds correct to me! Something to keep in mind, though, is that (in my high school, at least), rather than holding you back for an entire year, they just had us redo the required classes we failed, generally over the summer. So if he was held back for a whole grade, at least in my school district, he'd likely have been held back during his earlier schooling, like elementary-middle school :0
- How do classes work? What are the required ones? Typical class lengths? Do electives/clubs take place during school hours or after? What would drama, theater, etc. be grouped with?
- How long is lunch break typically and when does it normally occur? How many classes are usually before?
- When does school start and end?
Combining all of these for ease of flow lol.
My school had four different "core" classes, each of which required... I want to say three to four years each? English, Math, Science, and History were our core classes, required to graduate! My English classes were pretty basic, math varied from trigonometry to statistics to precalculus (keep in mind I was in advanced classes, so most other students weren't taking precalc, lol), for science we had earth science, biology, chemistry, and physics, and history was mostly US history with a year of world history mixed in, I think? Very US-centric, generally. We also had electives* to get our remaining credits - We were required to take either one or two semesters of a language of our choosing (my school offered Spanish, French, Latin, and ASL classes), a few art classes, and some various other ones to fill up our schedules. Among the classes we were offered were everything from Home Ec (cooking, basically), Animation & Game Design (of which we learned very little, because the teacher was on maternity leave and the sub was computer illiterate), Media Literacy (which was basically analyzing media like movies, tv shows, games, etc.; if you've ever spent some time taking a Wiki Walk through TVTropes, you'd probably enjoy that class), Photoshop, Woodshop, Photography (film photography, notably, with a dark room and development and everything. Our school was undergoing renovations at the time so they painted a supply closet black, put a blanket up over the door, and stuffed all 14 of us into it for our dark room. It was super cramped and it sucked haha), and Web Design (which they said was going to be teaching us programming but actually just had us making sites on Wix and Weebly), among others. Workshop, or free periods, were also an option we could take? But we had to have a minimum of six classes per semester, I think.
My school had a somewhat odd schedule - We had 4 classes a day, each lasting an hour and twenty minutes, with alternating schedules where one day you'd have one set of four classes, and the next day you'd have a different set, then the third day you'd have the first set again. My schedule started somewhat earlier than the current one did, but as it stand now, the school day starts at 8:10 with a bell reminding students to get to class at 8:05. After first period was a ten minute homeroom period, which was basically where they read off announcements and did the pledge and stuff, then it was on to second period. Third period was weird - We had a pretty big population at school, so they split our lunches into three groups based on what class you were in - According to the website, they've now split it further into four lunches? Wild. Anyway, third period art and science classes usually get either first or last lunch, because otherwise they're interrupting their painting and chemistry and whatnot to eat, and if everyone's running to get food before lunch ends in the middle of those sorts of things, especially the chem classes, it's kind of a safety hazard with people leaving their burners on or eating with hands covered in paint and chemicals, lmao. There's usually five minutes between classes to get from one to the other, because our school was decent sized, but for lunch you had to bolt down there and pray there were still tables available and that there wasn't a massive line if you didn't bring your own food. Also, they stopped serving the spicy chicken strips during my junior year because people kept stealing them out of the little paper boat things and eating them without paying, so instead of punishing them they punished all of us and got rid of them, which sucked because they were like the most edible thing they offered and I'm still salty about it but I digress. Anyway, the current bell schedule for SPHS can be found here: http://highschool.spsd.org/riots/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/18-19-Regular-Bell-Schedule.jpg
With regards to clubs and extracurriculars*, those took place after school! They usually lasted around the length of the class, and we usually met once a week for my clubs - Sports, naturally, meet more often and stay longer for games and practices, but the clubs I was in were things like anime club and GSA, so we didn't really do a whole ton of big stuff other than some events for pride and whatnot in GSA. Oh, and I was in robotics for a while, which met every week in the evenings at the garage of the middle school near me because they didn't have a place in the actual high school at the time and I guess they couldn't bus us over there after school? I dunno. But we did like, bottle drives and stuff on the weekends, and it sucked because me and most of the women of the group got relegated to spirit team, making banners and merch to sell at the events instead of actually, y'know, working on the robots like we joined the club to do. I bailed on it in December and never looked back, haha. Drama and theater were grouped together, and were counted as clubs too, though they also met more often to work on their stuff. They actually put on plays in the auditorium, and I heard they were pretty alright for high school plays? People actually bought tickets for them. I think they did, like, Shrek the Musical or something once? Definitely Shrek something, which is wild.
*Electives are classes! Like art and home ec and photography and stuff! Things you get credits for and go towards your graduation, but aren't part of your core curriculum of English, Math, Science, and History. Clubs and sports and stuff are all grouped together as extracurricular activities, which are hosted outside school hours and don't count towards your grades or anything.
- Do you pay for year books, or are they free? Either way, when do you get them?
- When is picture day held for the year book?
Grouping these two together, too! There was actually a yearbook club at school, too, who put the yearbook together every year alongside some of the staff. They chose, like, the themes of the yearbooks and whatnot? Anyway, we had to pay for our yearbooks, but they were optional so not everyone got them! I never really cared enough to buy them myself, but my father bought em anyway. People signed them after we got them sometimes, but it never really seemed like a big deal. We usually got them towards the end of the year, around May or early June or so I think, and pictures were usually taken in the late fall - I wanna say early to mid November, usually? They included pictures from clubs and sports stuff taken throughout the year too, though, which is probably why we didn't get them until late in the year - They had to make sure they included spring sports and stuff.
- At what point of the year does everyone move up a grade?
The new school year begins in late August or early September, depending on the year! :0 Whether you consider yourself officially the next year then or after school ends in June earlier that year varies from person to person, though.
- Are there big tests at the end of the school year, or is that merely for those graduating high school? If they're for everyone, when does testing end, or does the last test occur on the last day of school?
Ahhh, finals. Good times. I remember as a senior I brought my Wii U into the library and hooked it up to one of the smart tvs to play Splatoon between finals. The librarians walked past me, just sort of looked at me blatantly gaming and not giving a shit while other students were studying, and walked away like they decided "we don't get paid enough for this," haha.
Anyway, finals! We had them at the end of every semester regardless of what year we were in, because some of our classes (electives, mostly) were only half a year long, and electives often had students from various grade levels. They varied from traditional tests to essays to projects to just straight up not doing anything special, depending on the class - Year long classes didn't do their finals to the end of the year, of course, but even some half-year classes didn't really bother with them. Seniors get out a week earlier than other students, at least at my old school, so year end finals generally ended a week or two ahead of school getting out for everyone to make sure they're done on time for the seniors to have time to practice marching and stuff for graduation, iirc. The last week or two were usually sort of catchup weeks for everyone who had missing or late work, I think. Or just sort of chill hangout weeks, depending on the teacher. Depending on the year you were in, there were also PSATs and SATs, which varied by year and I think are no longer included in my old school's stuff by default? It used to be that everyone did them and the school footed the bill but I think they quit doing that and now it's like, an optional thing. That you have to pay for out of pocket now. Kinda fucked up how much emphasis people put on SATs but if your financial situation is bad you might not even be able to take them, and then you're stuck in the same shitty situation you started in because people value your scores on a test you couldn't afford more than you as a person, amirite? Yay capitalism! I'm sorry I don't mean to be a cynical bitch but the US education system being largely money-focused especially with regards to higher education screwed me the f u c k over and I'm salty. I couldn't fill out financial aid forms because of the divorce fucking up our finances and us not knowing what if anything we were going to end up with when all was said and done. And this happened during FAFSA season so I couldn't fill out the forms for financial aid and so I never got to go to college because I couldn't afford it and now I work often ten hour days as usually the only cashier at a job where people respond to me saying hello with "and a lemon" and I just. Fuck. I had dreams. I wanted to go to college out west and get into game design. I hate this shitty education system dismantel the government eat the rich I'm so tired..... I'm sorry that turned into a rant let's move on.
- When do students get report cards?
Haha, now this is something I'd like to forget. We got progress reports every quarter, usually a week or two after the quarter ended, and proper report cards at the end of each semester when grades were finalized. My progress reports always arrived around my birthday, which typically resulted in me crying myself to sleep every year as what should have been a celebration turned into my parents berating and yelling at me for my poor grades, which I now believe to be the result of comorbid and untreated ADHD and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, along with a messy home situation, preventing me from focusing and getting work and projects done even though I tested well. Fun fun fun! :') True story, I'm pretty sure I was missing half a credit by the time graduation rolled around, but they let me go anyway because I was the first student in a decade or so who got a letter of commendation for my performance on the SATs and they were like "well shit, if they don't graduate it's gonna reflect badly on us, we gotta let em go", lol. Anyway yeah, we got them at the end of each semester, I'm pretty sure, at the halfway point of the year in January-ish and in June as the year came to a close.
These are just my experiences, of course, and my memory is Pretty Bad, so take them with a grain of salt, but hopefully that helps a bit! Schooling methods vary from district to district, state to state, etc., so something that was accurate to me most likely won't be accurate to everyone. When in doubt, see if you can find pages online about various schools in the area you're writing about - A lot of them will likely have websites with information like schedules, classes, etc. listed right online, which can be a good reference! I know my old school has a lot of that stuff on their site :0
