My experience was quite different from yours, Kathy.

I started out in public school in Queens, within walking distance of our apartment. I used to come home for lunch.

I was in fourth grade when my mom died, and the following school year my dad sent me to a Catholic convent boarding school (we were Protestant) on Long Island. To say that was a big adjustment would be a gross understatement, but I grew to be fond of the nuns and the girls, and to appreciate the real beauty of the place.

Two years later my dad remarried, and I was back in public school for 7th grade. I had a hard time with the worldly nature of public school 7th-graders, and so for 8th grade I went back to private school--this time a Lutheran school within commuting distance (by public transportation). Both 7th and 8th grades were taught in the same room.

After that they figured I was ready for public high school, and I guess I was.

PS: There were 400 in my high school class--as large a population as that of your small town.

I live in what once a farming community....not many farms left here now, most were sold for strip mining years ago. Our school was similar to Kathy's. One teacher taught 1&2, one for 3&4, and one for 5&6. Then we had the jr high and high school in a separate building. They also had indoor plumbing, outhouses for the primary grades.

When I ended the 4th grade, they took the high school to a larger town 6 miles away. They kept the buildings for the first 4 grades, the rest of us were moved into the high school. What awe we 5th graders felt, moving into that 'big' building (It had 3 classrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a gym. )

You're right, Kathy, it was like learning both grades in one year by having 2 grades in one room. But I remember being bored the 2nd year. We had approximately 12 students per grade. I felt lost when we went to high school and there were 32 kids per grade!!

Shirley

I lived in a small river town - population 500 (it is about 700 today), so it was a small school even though students from 2 other towns also came to our school. There were about 20 kids in my first grade class and by the time I graduated in 1977 the class had grown to about 70.

I was fortunate enough to attend a very small elementry school.
Grades were combined to make up a big enough class per teacher.
We had grades 1 and 2 in one classroom. Then 3 and 4.
and 5 and 6, and for a long time 7 and 8.
Grades 7 and 8 were finally moved into the consolidated school system.
Our school was the last one not to be consolidated.
Several years after I graduated it was finally closed
and all the students were placed into the consolidated system.
There were 13 students in my 6th grade class.
There were less than 100 students in the whole school.
Kindergarden was added when I was in the 5th grade.
They were the only group big enough to be a single class.
I wish kids today could experience school like I did.

Pooh Bear

I grew up in a fairly large town in the 60's. I went to the same grade school for 9 years, K-8. It is now a junior high school with grades 6-8.
One day I googled the school, and they had a virtual street tour of the whole town, so I started at my old house and "walked" to school one last time. It was really neat and brought back great memories. I especially remember the safety patrol at the cross walk telling me that President Kennedy had been shot, which was why we were out of school early that day.

Trin

I grew up in a small town. There were 4 elementary schools in that town, 3 integrated (meaning all religions went there) and 1 Catholic. We didn't have a "public" system like in the US, any religion could open their own school and the government would pay the teachers and fund the school That system is now gone and we do have a public system. If a religion wants to open a school now they have to pay all the costs themselves.

Anyway, the schools took students from town as well as all the smaller towns around (kids were bussed from those towns to school). Basically you went to the school that was closest to where you lived. I think all 3 schools were equal distance from our home, so we went to a school where our cousins were going. Mom or Dad drove us to and from elementary school all the time. Once we got to junior high we walked. In the elementary school I attended there was 1 class for each grade. In the other 2 elementary schools there may have been 2 of one grade, and 1 of some others. So maybe 1 grade 1 class but 2 grade 4 classes, depending on the numbers.

The elementary schools went from kindergarten to grade 6. Once you reached grade 7 all the kids from all 3 elementary schools went to Junior High. That was grade 7 & 8. There were 5 or 6 classes of each grade.

After Junior High we went to High School right next door, in fact the schools were attached and they shared a cafeteria and 2 gyms. High School was grade 9 to 12. The Catholic system had their own junior high and high schools as well (connected schools).

The school system in my home town has changed a bit now, there are fewer students so there is just one big elementary school, a junior high and a high school. The building that I attended for junior high is now the elementary school, the high school is the same and the former Catholic school is the junior high school.

WOW, very interesting to me.

I grew up in Germany, and the school system was quite different.

My home town had a about 2600 people. Two schools, one for anyone, and one for catholic kids.

I am protestant.

The schools were right next to each other. Grades one through 9.

All kids had to go through nine years of school, but some, where the parents had more money, and the kids were extra smart, they went to higher education.

My dad, felt like girls just get married anyway, and one of my sisters and I only did 9 years of school.

My older half brother got to go to gymnasium (highschool) and my youngest sister got to go to realschule (middle school).

At the fourth grade the kids that went on to higher education left your school, and went by bus or train to a town with the higher school their parents paid for them to go to. Yep, it had to be paid for.

After the nine years of school you went in to a trade learning program, where you had on the job training and one day a week you went to school for that trade. You got paid, but the pay was low, very low, more like pocket money. My dad made me save half of everything I made during those three years.

My sister one year younger went on to a prep type school, to learn to be a day care worker, while I went to become a sales person in a small town general store type business. Birgit got married just before finishing her education, while I got my letter of completion before leaving Germany.

My youngest sister went to realschule, and upon completion went to work in the insurance trade before working for Lufthansa airlines. She quit after having kids, and she just finished a course in tiling, and lays ceramic tile in bathrooms for money.

My youngest brother also went to realschule, and after wards went in to the trade of fixing radios and such. He is now a house husband and a jack of all trades.

None of us know, what happened to our half brother, but that is a whole other story.

Moni... who now calls herself a housewife.

I grew up near a small farming community. The elementary (K-6) was on one side the street and high school (7-12) was on the other side. There were 66 kids in my graduating class. About 50 of us were in Kindergarten together. It seems strange to spend so much time with the same people and then after graduation we wen't our different ways. Some of us are still around. Others I haven't seen a single time since the night we graduated.

Ron

I grew up in a very small town that had originally been a Quaker settlement. There was no kindergarten, but grades 1 thru 12 were in the same building. When I got to be a senior, they had built a new high school. There were 22 in my graduating class and most of them, had went all thru school with me.

Everything in the community revolved around the church. We did not have school dances...because it was against the religion of the Quakers and later, the Baptists, who also had a church there. Before anything could be scheduled for school, they had to make sure there was no church conflict...a revival or whatever.

It was a nice little town...no beer or cigarettes sold in town and you couldn't teach at the school if you drank, smoked cigarettes or danced. :))

Facinating question. I feel so lucky to have been in school in San Francisco when it was almost a country town. We lived in a valley of farms, hot houses, fields of turnips, cows, dairys, horses and rodeo's on our street. The war changed the rodeo's to troops marching past our homes on their way to the Cow Palace (finished just as the war was begining). I went to school in that valley 1st to 4th grade, then transfered a few miles away where we took the municipal transportation to school. Jr. High was some distance further, and one of the most modern attempts at "tracking" kids from to fast to slow, with many trade and industrial classes available. More like our community colleges today. High School was a continuation of those classes for most. We never gave a thought to being afraid of taking public transportation to "our" down town, or beaches, GGate Park, great swimming pools, movies, or the wharf. What a place to grow up and I am forever grateful.

Before leaving HS I had a very good job in banking; the bank is still there, the HS unrecognizable in a sea of homes and freeways now. Went to Community College when DS went to College.

I attended a country 'one room' school in a rural area. [And yes, I and my sister did walk 2 miles to school!] All grades were taught by one teacher and in the same room. However, not all grade years were present at a time since the school enrollment varied from 2 to 10 students. WW2 broke out during my 1st grade year. That had a profound effect on the rural countryside. Many young adult males were drafted, and other renters and share-croppers who were poor, flocked to the cities to war driven jobs. In 1942, there were only 2 students at my school, my sister and myself. Much of the southern Illinois farm population had not recovered from the great depression of the 1930's when war struck. This war was the main driver that changed the mix of the population in the countryside. Listed below are some of the changes that occured:

1. Rural areas were stripped of males aged 18 through 28 years old.

2, Rural population was reduced almost overnight.

3. Most commodities were rationed. Many food items were rationed as well as rubber products. Spices particularily peppers, coffee, and sugar were rationed. However, popcorn was not rationed thus the Saturday matinee had an ample supply of popcorn.

4. 45 mph speed limit on national highways.

5. Governors put on private trucks over a certain size to insure compliance to the speed limit. These govenors were set to no more that 50 mph. Ever try to execute passing a slower vehicle when your vehicle was governor limited - It was a nightmare.

6. Railroads were replacing steam locomotives to diesel units. The war delayed complete replacement, but the replacement process was completed by 1945. I remember seeing a steam locomotive being used as work engine to make up grain trains between two small towns up to 1950, and then these were gone.

7. Copper was considered a strategic material and was seized. The REA electrification of the countryside was put on hold until after the war. That is why city ice-plants continued to exist until 1945 and then were quickly abandoned as electric refrigerators began to populate the countryside. The first electric appliances purchased by a farm family were a refrigerator, electric iron, and vacuum cleaner (listed in order of importance).

8. The one room country grade school was phased out in the 1950s. The first step was consolidation of 2 or more school districts into one. Bussing of students became necessary because the average maximum distance from home to school grew from 2 miles to 5 or more. In the early years of consolidation, the bus service consisted of 'soccer' moms with a station wagon. The school system became totally dependent on having passenger vehicles whereas before, this was not a factor.

9. The use of penicillin and vaccines became available and popluar.

10. Polio was a dreaded disease and infections were active.

11. The horse and buggy largely disappeared by 1925 and the last ones were gone by 1940. Horses as draft animals were mostly gone by 1940. Some farmers in remote locations continued to use horses during the war and these poor souls went broke.

12. Barn constuciton changed. The old style, large 2 storey barns gave way to large shed styles. If you see an old style barn, photograph it. These are disappearing and will not be replaced. Many are now approaching 70 yrs of age, and a number are 100 yrs old. (The exception to this are religious groups who shun modern equipment and continue to use draft animals.)

I went to 2 different elementary schools in Alberta. Grades 1-3 and 5 and 6 here in Calgary at the same school, and grade 4 in Three Hills Alberta. My parents ran a small diner there for close to a year before realizing it just wasn't their cup of tea and we moved back into our house here, that they had rented out. Anyways, I did grades 7 and 8, which we call junior high here (as is 9) up the block from the house we lived in. We always lived within a couple blocks from school here. Then we moved to Prince George BC. I went to 3 different schools there. Grade 9 was about five blocks from home and I walked it. By the time I was in grade 10, our house was built and we lived 10 miles out of the city limits and had to be bussed into town. It was a LOOONNNGGG drive! Even longer by the time I got to grade 11 and went to Senior High. The ride to that school was longer because the school bus would makes its first run to drop off the kids at the elementary and junior high, then go back out of town to the trailer park and then we went back to the elementary and junior high school, then to the senior high. Sometimes I would get off the bus on the first run at the junior high and walk the rest of the way. Usually the school bus would get there just as I did, so I only did this in good weather.