Middle School Inconsistencies

[baseballchica03]

I've been kicking around an idea for a Stacey-centered fic in my head as part of a gift/challenge thing, so I thought I'd re-read some Stacey books to get a feel for her character. (I was never a huge fan, so I didn't pay all that much attention to her.)

Anyway, last night I started The Truth About Stacey. In it, she mentions that Stoneybrook

Comments

[thepastperfect]

Kristy's rich neighbourhood falls in the Kelsey district. I don't necessarily think that's weird; high schools are sometimes named after people, and don't always conform to the names of the area (for example, I went to a school called Wyomissing, and people who lived in parts of Wyomissing did as well, but the district boundaries are set such that some people who live in the town of Wyomissing go to Wilson). And high schools can be in very different divisions for sports and such (are they called divisions in high school?) -- we never played Wilson in most sports because they were so much bigger, even though they were just a couple miles away from us.

I always thought it was kind of weird that Kelsey was so rarely mentioned, aside from the thing in #11 and not having an orchestra when Abby and Anna move in. But when I was young, the vast majority of my friends were people who went to my school (I met a few kids through things like club sports and dance, but not many), so I didn't think it was that strange.

[rareified]

Kelsey Middle has a bigger role in #112 (Kristy and the Sister War) -- they have the All-Stoneybrook Dance and it includes all three middle schools in Stoneybrook.

[baseballchica03]

Kelsey, yes, that's the name of it. Thank you. I was already at the office by the time I made the post, so I didn't have my CG in front of me to look it up. I know schools can be named after people, but it seems a little strange that one would be Stoneybrook and one would be Name Of Person, rather than Stoneybrook W and E or both Name Of Person, you know? Although maybe it's like cassandraclue suggests and the district is actually the next town over that just overlaps pieces of Stoneybrook.

It just seemed kind of weird to me because if Kristy and Abby were on sports teams, wouldn't they be playing against some of the kids from their neighborhood (assuming that any of them went to public school)?

[bcrowessteffi]

I couldn't understand why Kelsey didn't have an orchestra ... usually those "upper crust" schools have all those perks. Obviously, they (AMM and Ghosties) had to come up with a reason for Abby and Anna to go to SMS, but that seemed strange to me.

[promisemewings]

You're not the only one who's thought about that. I think maybe since Stacey is so new to Stoneybrook ("The Truth About Stacey" IS book 3, after all...) and lives close to Claudia, Mary Anne and Kristy, she's unaware of Stoneybrook Day School. Like me, for example. I've lived in this little town for years, and I was unaware of the fact that this town has a private Christian school until after I graduated HS. I knew of the Catholic school, but never knew about this private Christian school.

[jessicarae729]

Without bothering to actually look at any books, I'm pretty sure that Kelsey Middle is mentioned a few times in reference to sports, mostly with Logan's sport team du jour as the context. I know it shows up in Stacey's Mathletes plot. I think that makes sense in a middle school sense, that the other schools in the district are only really important in a competition sense.

I always got the impression that Kelsey was the "upper-crust", smaller, snootier middle school, but that could just be me....

[cassandraclue]

I am just guessing because she's new and doesn't know anyone in the Kelsey district. Or Kelsey is actually outside of Stoneybrook, and the Kelsey district crosses into Stoneybrook town limits.

It is possible that no one on Kristy's side goes to public school, though. No one in my dad's neighborhood in Florida does, but that's because the district is really bad and it's doesn't seem like Stoneybrook has bad public schools.

[tygre]

On paying tuition -- from what I understand, it would occur if SMS was in one town and Kristy lived in another and wanted to commute, but if both schools are in the same town, usually there is no tuition involved.

Our town has 2 public elementary schools. We were in School A's area but looking for a house to buy. When we saw a house we liked in School B's area, we asked what we would need to do to keep our son, then in his last year of elementary school, in his original school, and they told us all we had to do was provide transportation, as no busses from that school would come to the other location. No mention of tuition, though.

I agree that it's rather likely no one in Kristy's neighborhood goes to public school. There are some very expensive private schools in my area and in the wealthier neighborhoods, well, public buses leave with one or two kids aboard instead of a dozen.

[baseballchica03]

On paying tuition -- from what I understand, it would occur if SMS was in one town and Kristy lived in another and wanted to commute, but if both schools are in the same town, usually there is no tuition involved.

I'm not so familiar with small towns, but I do know that around where I grew up, unless it's a magnet school (which has a set policy for acceptance of non-neighborhood students), you have to pay tuition to go to a school that's not your neighborhood school. And I distinctly remember in one of those two books I mentioned that Kristy was having a temper tantrum about moving and throwing her life into disarray wah wah wah, and Charlie absolutely threw the smackdown and told her that Watson pulled strings and was paying tuition so she wouldn't have to change schools.

[just_laura]

When I was younger, I know that my parents would have had to pay for me to go to an out-of-district school--it had something to do with taxes, IIRC.

Things might have changed since then; it seems like it's not in the best interest of the child to provide a financial hoop to jump through in order to keep a stable school environment after a move.