This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
A nitpick: IIRC, My So Called Life didn't have a unisex restroom. All the bathroom scenes on the show were in the girl's bathroom -- the only boy who's ever there is Ricky. However, none of the extras in the bathroom scenes (all girls) ever acted like it was strange for him to be there. The whole point of this was the subtext about Ricky's orientation (which didn't stay as a subtext, of course).
Red Shoe: While inaccurate, I thought the phrase "unisex bathroom" was a convenient shorthand for the phenomenon, given that what I meant by it is explained further up in the article. It's the most famous, but not the only, example of "People hang out in the wrong restroom and no one gets in trouble for this."
Nlpnt: Google cache version of the main text parked below:
There's something about secondary education- the nature of teenagers, the nature of the adults that work with teenagers, parents' expectations that things will be just like when they were a kid- that lends itself to the accrual of strange national customs. Every major country has its' own, but as far as 90% of the entries on this wiki are concerned, only three countries' systems actually count- the US, the UK (it should be worth mentioning that England and Scotland have different systems, rendering 'British' confusing for actual Brits) and Japan. (Sorry, Germany.) The Canadian system (at least the Anglophone one) is basically similar to the US, the Irish system similar to the British one, and the (South) Korean one similar to Japan (sorry, Canada, Ireland and Korea.) This entry is primarily about the American one.
High schools in television tend to be cleaner, more modern, better lit, and more architecturally interesting than most of their real-world counterparts. Obviously, there do exist real-world high schools which are large, spacious, space-inefficient, and brand spanking new, but as school buildings tend to have very long operational lifetimes, these are in the minority.
The archetypical high school set consists of a single hallway lined with wide lockers, and three doorways leading to a classroom, the principal's office, and a rest room.
Television high school students spend an inordinate amount of time in a single classroom, which is not unreasonable given the likelihood that we will only ever see one or two teachers. Any student we care about will have his locker in the hallway immediately outside the only classroom.
If we see another classroom, 99% of the time it will be a thoroughly well-stocked science lab, often with trappings more appropriate to 30 years ago (or whenever the producers went to high school).
Rest rooms are always accessible to students, and it is not uncommon or difficult for one to spend time in the rest room of the opposite gender in order to hold a private conference.
In the warmer parts of the country in real life, a school tends to consist of many buildings, with open-air spaces between classrooms. But Hollywood portrayals almost always assume a single building, with hallways rather than open spaces between classrooms.
Television writers seem unable to keep clear which conventions are specific to a high school, and which are more appropriate to a college (see also Elaborate University High). There are often times during the school day when a student may freely wander the building without having to be anywhere in particular, and can freely enter and leave the campus at any time. (This editor's high school actually did the former, the result being that school ended at 4:30.) It is also common for a single class to be cancelled, giving a student character some free time. All of these things may exist in some actual US high schools, but it is far and away more common for students to be required to remain in their classrooms at all times, and many schools even employ guards to stop students from leaving campus without permission.
High schools are almost always named after historical presidents of the United States, with the more obscure 19th-century presidents (Fillmore, Polk, Mc Kinley...) most favored. Sometimes other famous historical figures are used, though a few are named for the town they are in. These are the most common sources of names for US high schools in the real world as well.
Class-times may vary to suit the needs of the plot, with the result that students may arrive to or depart from the same class to a destination which differs from episode to episode.
Schools have mascots. As in real-life, they appear to have been chosen entirely at random. As in real-life, they are often patently ridiculous. (This editor's high school had a Confederate general. In Vermont. Really.) Often, an "uncool" male protagonist will take a turn in the school mascot coustume, for one episode, but almost never takes over the role for an entire season.
High schools seen in anime tend to be far more detailed than their American counterparts when they play any part in a story, but this may be attributed to the fact that there are only two or three basic school designs permitted by the Japanese government. Almost every school is identical to every other school, and thus viewers have built-in expectations about what they'll find to which the animators must cater.
As the high school setting is crucial to the formula of the show, producers often find ways to draw out the high school experience. Almost all shows start in freshman year. On Beverly Hills 90210, an extreme case, the producers actually had the students go to junior year twice. Finally, the cast is often made to attend a California University to keep the group together. On the other end, almost all High School tropes in fiction (and most in real life not having to do directly with academics) apply equally to Middle School / Junior High .
Stereotypically, private schools are usually populated by extremely snooty smartasses with more money than they know what to do with. (It is worth mentioning that this editor goes to a private school.) They also have to wear uniforms, and are usually single-sex. Public schools, on the other hand, are depicted as extremely poor (or just "normal"), the children "run wild" and have dress codes instead of a strict uniform policy. (Or so the servants tell me after Calligraphy.)
A word about school dress codes here- in the last decade, an entire trend towards stricter dress codes and uniforms in American public schools has developed, peaked, and largely died out with hardly any notice from the creators of fiction. There are a number of reasons for this- it started after the creators were out of school, the Real Life version of this trend was more common in elementary schools (and never even considered as an option by some 80% of them), varied clothing helps in characterization, the creators want their cast to look cool to teen viewers, the actors can't wear golf shirts and khakis without looking like computer salesmen- the upshot is, if there's a strict dress code in a fictional American public school, chances are it's a Chekhovs Gun and probably also a Compressed Vice. Exception: a "no-hat" rule for Lampshade Hanging an absence of baseball caps (which make lighting difficult) in Live Action.
High Schools of all kinds are the natural habitat of The Libby and her Girl Posse, the Jerk Jock, the Sadist Teacher, and numerous other hazards common to the teenage years. There will almost always be a High School Dance of some sort to go to.
For schools in Britain, see The Good Old British Comp.
