k-12 school: in a single building?

In a small town, I dare say yes. I can back this up sort of, via personal experience, but with some exceptions:

1. My school was only K-8
2. The school did end up building small "stick" buildings for grades 2-3, but the building itself was also pretty small compared to my current high school.

Kindergarten was near the bottom floors, and grades up the 8th were on the second floor. Like I said, it was a pretty small school in retrospect, so a building that is just big enough and in a small town, yes you could have a school that is actually k-12 in one building. They'd still probably section off the older kids from the much younger ones (in my experience they go crazy sectioning us off). I don't know if there DOES exist a school like this, but I'm positive that it could exist.

Yep, the school in the town I live in. It's very small. There are usually somewhere around 10-15 kids in a graduating class. They do keep all the elementary classrooms in one end of the building, but I think that's to keep the littles from being disturbed by the bigs between classes.

Does it need to be a public school? I know of one or two private schools with K-12 in one building. One of these was featured on a special edition of Extreme Makeover on ABC-TV because it was severely damaged in the May floods in Nashville.

I attended such a public school in a small town in rural New York. It served nine small communities, and had an enrollment of about 500 kids total, K-12, all educated in the same building. My graduating class included 41 souls. My mother (and all her siblings) and grandmother (and all her siblings) graduated from the same school in 1959 and 1936, respectively.

I went to a school kind of like that. (not in the US of course) Although technically, the school were different institutions, different teachers, different headmasters etc. They just shared the building.

Yep, there are plenty of them. Just check out rural communities.

My school used to be like that. Until they built the middle school separate from the high school. The elementary and high schools are technically separate, but they are connected so you can easily walk between them.

There's a private school out here in rural Texas with one classroom. I believe that they begin at first grade, not kindergarten, though I can't be sure.

We have schools out here where the grades aren't in the same building, but all on the same campus. So the buildings are very close together, within walking distance, and the older kids help out with the younger ones.

I went to school in a school that had K-12 in one building. K-6 was on the first floor and 7-12 was on the second floor. There were 78 people in my graduating class. This was in a small town in Upstate New York. I graduated from high school in 1978.

Since then the town has grown a bit and they actually built a small elementary school in the 1980's.

I once went to a school that had K-12 in a single room.

We used the teacher's trampoline for sport.

It was a great school.

In a contemporary setting, you're going to need a small perhaps even isolated rural community. But sure, the concept is possible as noted above.

By isolated - I would think somewhere in mountainous, desert or island settings. Any small community that is CLOSE to a large community - or easily served by mass transit, would simply ship the older kids to established schools. In short, there's got to be a reason NOT to bus people.

WriteKnight said:

In a contemporary setting, you're going to need a small perhaps even isolated rural community. But sure, the concept is possible as noted above.

By isolated - I would think somewhere in mountainous, desert or island settings. Any small community that is CLOSE to a large community - or easily served by mass transit, would simply ship the older kids to established schools. In short, there's got to be a reason NOT to bus people.

Click to expand...

Nearly every small town school district in South Dakota has their entire K-12 schools in the same building. Basically, the entire school district is in one building (unless they also have Hutterite schools, which are separate). Exceptions would be for bedroom towns around Sioux Falls or Rapid City and for consolidated school districts. In a consolidated district, there is usually a high school in one town, junior high in the other town, and elementary schools in both.

These towns are not necessarily isolated. There is no mass transit, but everyone has a car or three, so it isn't needed. South Dakota has open enrollment, so kids can go to any public school they like, as long as they can get there. Our school is within 30 miles from a large school system, but none of the local kids go there. There is no way our school would ever be consolidated with that school and no way kids would ever be bused there.

Hunter College Campus Schools is an elementary school and a 7-12 school sharing a building in New York City; they were started as training schools for education majors from Hunter College to teach in. Both schools test for gifted children, which gives the student teachers a somewhat warped experience.

Signed,
Graduate/Survivor of Hunter College High School (for the Intellectually Gifted and Emotionally Handicapped)

It tends to be either small, rural communities or special situations - the school is serving a special population, such as actor kids, professional athletes, religious reasons... I also know of at least one 'district' that is part of a Mercy ship. 2 teachers k-12 serving about 60 students who live on a ship serving in disaster areas such as Haiti, Africa and such.

The school where I started first grade had 1-12 in the same building, there was no kindergarten. The last graduating class (1956) were seniors when I was in first grade, then a new high school was built a mile or so away. The next closest town was about 75 miles away. The elementary school used this building until 1991. The building is magnificent from the outside and is currently being renovated for combination living quarters and artists studios.

MM