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Yeah, I had K-6, 7-8 and then 9-12 as well. Don't when this 6-8 nonsense started but I don't cotton to it.

My grammar don't cotton to it either and she would know!

I remember an 8th grade thing, but the religious school only went up to grade 8, so it was a big deal for them. I want to say the normal people had one too. It wasn't like high-school graduation or anything, but there was a little ceremony at least.

My system was even more weird. K-6, 7-9 and 10-12. Also, I only graduated from K and 12.

Which puts her in the upper 10% in Tennessee.

SpoilerOnly graduating K would still put her in the upper 50%

The "norm" in NJ is K-5, 6-8, and 9-12.

NJ teaching certification is generally broken into 3 groups.

One is the standard K-5 certification, which allows you to teach all basic content areas a typical elementary school teacher is assigned. It also lets you teach those skills, at the same basic level, in grades 6-12, for specific situations where that would be necessary. Caveat: it requires you to have the normal k-12 certification.

Middle school has another tier of certification, defined as 5-8, which involves topic specialization into the core areas, plus world language. These certifications ALSO allow you to teach the core curriculum for K-5. You need just as many general content area courses, plus education courses, and are also required to have additional courses in that specific topic area (plus other certifications, depending on subject, such as with language).

Both the above require coursework in early childhood education, for obvious reasons, from an accredited university.

The final "tier" is for all public schools, but is specialized. Someone with a high school science certification can teach science at any level. They can't work as an elementary school teacher (in all content areas), but they CAN act as a specials teacher (which is what my brother does - he can teach Spanish, but only Spanish, in any level school).

Plenty of teachers end up certified for elementary school, too, because the only major requirement is a few additional courses in early childhood education. My brother would have grabbed it while still in school, but he was on an accelerated track, and it meant choosing between class or work in the summer (the school being too far from the seasonal restaurant kitchen where he had a position).

So, from a certification standpoint, the only definitive point NJ has taken is that K-5 is elementary school. If your school is K-6, that's fine, but you'd need sufficient teachers with the k-8 certification to address that. And those schools do exist, but it's almost always a population-based issue.

As a result, K-5, and 6-8 is the most common grouping here. Just makes it easiest on schools to manage their staff if everyone is certified to handle all the students you could throw at them.

I've heard of other configurations though. Most scenarios of +/- 1-2 years of the normal system probably exist somewhere in NJ. I think we have... 385 public high schools, iirc from a meeting I had on Wednesday, and somwhere between 600 and 800 school districts? Something like that.

Wow, Idigory must be bored to write that wall of text to a 6 word statement.

I was K-4, 5-6, 7-8, & 9-12.

We also had indoor plumbing. Score!

There isn't a standard because a standard doesn't have a meaningful advantage over allowing districts to deal with their own population and land/building needs/limitations to the best of their ability.

If you have average class sizes of 300 kids (let's just assume a linear population), then you're going to need at least 3 facilities where, between them, they can hold 3900 students.

So you create grade levels in the school according to where you can actually put them. Most districts seem to have multiple elementary schools, just because it's much easier to manage that environment if you keep the overall size down. Managing 100 children at recess is much easier than 300. Plus, as elementary schoolers don't move around much, you don't need to worry about the layout being super accessible for class switching.

But, again, this is ultimately going to fall to the district's needs. The standard is definitely k-5, 6-8, 9-12 in NJ. But you do see other models. Maybe the district has been like that for a long time, and hasn't felt like dealing with the logistics of changing it. Maybe they don't have the space or funds to change it. Etc.

Yeah, if you reduce your viewpoint to the smallest scope possible. But what levels are we talking about?

A school system that is currently something other than k-5, 6-8, 9-12 is going to have to spend a lot of money to transition their schools to a new model. That same amount of money can be used to hire more teachers/reduce class sizes, buy computers, offer updated textbooks and other materials, offer extracurriculars, more languages, etc.

I'm better the same amount of money would be far better spent elsewhere, if the facilities don't already need updating.

If the district is already in a position where they have to undergo significant construction or expansion projects, it's one thing. But I seriously doubt it's worth it in any other scenario except as a long-term plan, where you can plan to efficiently transition with low cost.

I didn't say anything about mandatory changes. My question was why it wasn't ever a standard to begin with? If you feel the need to standardize it now, obviously grandfathering certain school systems under certain circumstances would be a definite option.

My system was even more weird. K-6, 7-9 and 10-12.

Wait, your country day school only went through 6th grade? Where did you go for two years before prep school? So confusing.