Question Pre-teens at Whateley

I know that when talking about mutants the manifestation age is puberty, but that seems to have ended up with all the main characters being older teens. With only a few, like the little witches being younger, and they were still fourteen if I recall correctly, though I always thought they were written more like they were eleven.

Where was I. Oh, yes, mutants seem to be restricted to older ages, but there are a lot of other sources of empowerment. And it seems to me that a pre-teen who manifested a particularly strong power, or physical change would be in need of even more protection and isolation than regular teen mutants. Dr Heavy? from generation one was very young if I recall.

Plus I've always loved scrappy kid stories.

I think there has been a mention in the generation two stories about there being younger students, but like the Little witches they don't seem really all that young. Are there pre-teens at the school? And if there are, any chance they might be included in the stories.

One possible source of interaction is a big brother/sister set up where younger students might be matched with older students who have similar abilities who could mentor them.

I can just hear the cracks about kid sidekicks already. ^_^

Does anyone else like the story potential of younger students?

Yes, there are pre-Junior High kids at Whateley, although, they're all lumped under the Junior High Program

The oldest Little Witches are Abracadabra and Palantir, at 12 years old, and Clover is 11.

The youngest student, that we know of, is Ember , who's eight years old.

And, there's a pattern of younger activation age getting stronger powers. So having a really young kid get powers might make them a StoryBreaker.

No, mutants don't all manifest at puberty. There is a statistical bulge at that age, but they can manifest earlier or later. However the older the manifestee, the more chance of something going wrong (usually fatally)

peter wrote: and they were still fourteen if I recall correctly, though I always thought they were written more like they were eleven.

Clover is twelve, at least at the start of the school year. So now she is thirteen. She is the youngest of the three if i recall correctly. The other two are going to be freshmen this year so fourteen at the start of the next school year ?

peter wrote: And it seems to me that a pre-teen who manifested a particularly strong power, or physical change would be in need of even more protection and isolation than regular teen mutants. Dr Heavy? from generation one was very young if I recall.

You are thinking about Diz Aster, i think, she is eleven at the start of G1. So even younger than clover. The Wiki does not mention Lester's age, only that he is a dwarf.

there is a unofficial whateley fan fiction called emerald princess, he starts out 18 years old and manifest as a really powerful 2 year old girl.

Ripper wrote: there is a unofficial whateley fan fiction called emerald princess, he starts out 18 years old and manifest as a really powerful 2 year old girl.

Oh, Right, That... And she does actually get to Whateley... And then it stops. But it does seem that the author intends to continue it...

Located here: www.fictionmania.tv/searchdisplay/authordisplay.html?word=5463

Kristin Darken wrote:

Ripper wrote: there is a unofficial whateley fan fiction called emerald princess, he starts out 18 years old and manifest as a really powerful 2 year old girl.

Ya, that's a good bit outside the universe mechanics. Even if those limited cases where we allow it to happen in characters, Age regression is a component of regeneration guided by a BIT or a similar representative 'height' of physical health. For healthy, well fed human beings... that's generally somewhere between 16-18 years old. The 'end' of puberty. In most cases, having a BIT means growing up (and outward) a bit early... so we have early-mid teens with the body of a young mature adult. There's little reason for regeneration to push you back through puberty. More likely, a 'young' appearing regen/exemplar is a result of early manifestation and the regen simply slows the aging process enough that the teen years take... time.

Any pre-teen manifesting is likely synced up with early hard hitting puberty (high stresses on the body).

I don't really think I have a good handle on just how BITs work, but we have seen that there are some people who end up looking like Pop culture icons, or at least Anime and game characters.

And some cases of GSD are in fact BITs instead warping the body to fit some template.

And Jade was trapped at a prepubescent age by her's was she not?

So it seems that it is possible a bit could cause a person to manifest as childlike.

I've always been a fan of transformation fiction, not just Gender shifting. And there as a period of my life when I would have given anything to be eight years old again. It was sort of a golden period of my life. I also sort of would have liked to have been female as well, because to my eyes at the time little girl's had it made in the shade.

No worries, someone else making all the decisions, no responsibilities. Hakuna Matata for real.

So someone who's last happy memories were as a child, and who looks back at that period with a huge amount of desire might affect their bit to the point that they have the physical appearance of a child.

Mind you, might be troublesome if they only look like childlike while being fully mature.

There is a fairly popular comedic character type in Anime and Manga. The adult female who looks like a young middle school girl.

peter wrote: And Jade was trapped at a prepubescent age by her's was she not?

It doesn't seem so :

Phoenix Spiritus wrote: Also, its postulated that her "BIT" image is actually what her psychic projections "look" like (i.e Shroud's "Japanese Girl" look), so her "BIT" isn't what is causing her condition either.

WOG: Yes there is a canon reason for the condition.

Only one thing is really known about BIT : We have no idea how it truely works (i mean, even higher beings in canon don't really understand it). In canon characters only have access to theories and assumption.

I've had a character idea for a while which (among other things) involved a character who manifested around the age of five due to precocious puberty , but her BIT locked her as a normal looking little girl before any of the usual physical manifestations of puberty could become apparent.

Kristin, would such a character fit inside WU mechanics?

I wonder who the other two Junior High girls are... Less than Three might be one, if she's just a Devisor, then she likely is one, 'cause she should appear her actual age. But she could be an Exemplar, who'd know?

She is a short cute, very young-appearing little girl with Shirley Temple blonde curls. Her actual age is unknown. She talks with a lisp. She habitually wears a pair of goggles, even when on the sparring mat.

So, if you're a freshman... in the year that you start your freshman year, you will be 14 years old at some point during it? ... I thought it was 13...

Like, a freshman during 2006-2007 has their 14th birthday some when in 2006?

Can anyone figure out where I got "There are only 3 Junior Highs advancing to freshman in 2007-2008"??

In the US, many school systems give you a grace period of about a month before your appropriate birthday - you have to be 5 to start kindergarten, or turn 5 within a few weeks of school start. Which puts most freshmen at 14 or soon turning so. There are mitigating factors, but as schools have been infested by bureaucrats without a lick of common sense, the ability to get a waiver for someone who's precocious to start earlier is quite difficult. So at Whateley, most freshmen will be 14.

There ARE a few junior high students, like Abra, Clover, and Pally, but considering that manifestation is a prerequisite (with a few exceptions), and most mutants will manifest around 13 or 14, we have what we have.

Now my issue is that manifestation is supposedly triggered by stress, such as happens with puberty, and with puberty happening earlier and earlier, it's not unreasonable to think that at some point, Whateley would have to have a full junior high program as well. But for now, it's defined the way it's defined.

The early cannon for Whateley tended to have people as Freshmen in their first year no matter what their actual age was. (Not counting the junior high students of course)

Fey and Tennyo for example.

Wall Flower was the first exception iirc.

The reason being is to make sure that all students get their 4 years there. Or at least that's what I remember reading years back.

I mean if you count exemplar deaging there are a few preteen students, 2 in Poe, though one of them is legally 15, chronologically 50, and biologically 10....

The other one is Jade....

mhalpern wrote: I mean if you count exemplar deaging there are a few preteen students, 2 in Poe, though one of them is legally 15, chronologically 50, and biologically 10....

The other one is Jade....

Jade hasn't been deaged, she just sort of stopped aging. Timeless seems to be that way too.

Diz and Ember are both preteens.

Malady wrote: So, if you're a freshman... in the year that you start your freshman year, you will be 14 years old at some point during it? ... I thought it was 13...

Like, a freshman during 2006-2007 has their 14th birthday some when in 2006?

Can anyone figure out where I got "There are only 3 Junior Highs advancing to freshman in 2007-2008"??

I get the impression that one of the side effects of having Local School Districts is that starting ages for the different levels of school vary. And that some of the levels may not even exist in a particular district.

elrodw wrote: There ARE a few junior high students, like Abra, Clover, and Pally, but considering that manifestation is a prerequisite (with a few exceptions), and most mutants will manifest around 13 or 14, we have what we have.

Now my issue is that manifestation is supposedly triggered by stress...

Does this mean the Three Little witches each have some tragic magical-girl backstory?!

We know so little about them, after all.

annachie wrote: The early cannon for Whateley tended to have people as Freshmen in their first year no matter what their actual age was. (Not counting the junior high students of course)
...
Wall Flower was the first exception iirc.

Lily is an interesting case, because she already had a lot of the, "mutant powers," instructions from her parents and their friends...and her friends...and their parents, and so on.

Especially when you contrast her with Misty, who as far as I know, is the only other transfer to come in as a sophomore until Kayda (and she had to force the situation). Which is strange, because even Lily is forced into Powers Theory, and Kayda's academic course woes are well documented.

Does this add credence to the Jadis theory that Misty is basically...faking being a complete ditz? For Misty to skip ahead to sophomore, she must have a very solid academic transcript, letting her take Freshie and Sophomore mutant classes, but skipping all the academics.

Well, being a complete emotional and social ditzy isn't the same as not knowing what answers go where on a test paper.

For all we know, Misty swallowed a Library whole and part of her problem is too much information is in her head, all fighting to get out causing her brain to run too fast for her to communicate effectively.

Her problem isn't that she is a total ditz, it's that by the time her mouth has got some of the words out, her brain is now telling her something completely different that she needs to say, and her mouth just can't keep up with her brain!

Well, it's a theory anyway ...

Malady wrote: So, if you're a freshman... in the year that you start your freshman year, you will be 14 years old at some point during it? ... I thought it was 13...

Generally, the school districts try to avoid overcrowding any given grade level in their schools. Hence, entrance to 1st grade will depend on when the student turns 6. In some cases, kids with an October birthday may be allowed to start school. For others, September or August may be the cutoff.

The public school systems I'm familiar with have run Grades 1-6: Elementary School; 7-9 Middle School; 10-12 High School. However, as economies speed up or fall back families may move in or out in bulk. I've heard of students ending up attending 10th grade classes held at their middle school simply because that was less disruptive than shifting the school boundaries.

konzill wrote: I get the impression that one of the side effects of having Local School Districts is that starting ages for the different levels of school vary. And that some of the levels may not even exist in a particular district.

I've never heard of grades being entirely missing. That doesn't mean one district's Grade X offerings will match another district's, whether the students have the support to apply themselves or not.

So, it was kind of assumed that since I tested slightly behind the class in 3rd grade math and ahead in reading, that the difference lay in changing school systems near the start of 3rd grade. The following year, It was with great relief that my 4th grade teacher agreed to transferring me to the 5th grade class. Toss an October birthday into the mix, and I ended up starting 9th Grade/Freshman Year at 12 5/6.

While Misty is rooming with Jadis, and on the Sophomore floor, her grade is never stated. It may be that Jadis had the only open bed in the dorm when she arrived.

Also, Jadis has had a ton of roommate problems. Finding a good fit probably trumps grade.

Phoenix Spiritus wrote: Well, being a complete emotional and social ditzy isn't the same as not knowing what answers go where on a test paper.

For all we know, Misty swallowed a Library whole and part of her problem is too much information is in her head, all fighting to get out causing her brain to run too fast for her to communicate effectively.

Her problem isn't that she is a total ditz, it's that by the time her mouth has got some of the words out, her brain is now telling her something completely different that she needs to say, and her mouth just can't keep up with her brain!

Well, it's a theory anyway ...

There is a theory, and I don't know how true it is, that the more intelligent the person is, the less balanced they are in other ways.

This could explain the theory you offered. Though it might be more as if the people she is talking to are only hearing a fraction of the conversation she is having. She just fails to verbalize the entire thing.

Valentine wrote:

mhalpern wrote: I mean if you count exemplar deaging there are a few preteen students, 2 in Poe, though one of them is legally 15, chronologically 50, and biologically 10....

The other one is Jade....

Jade hasn't been deaged, she just sort of stopped aging. Timeless seems to be that way too.

Diz and Ember are both preteens.

Both Jade and Alyss got hit with the mutation of youth to prepubescence, Jade has Jinn, who is iirc a representation of Jade's actually age, at the very least, Jinn is an aged version of Jade's bit 'physically?' So we know her bit allows for aging just very slowly or something is blocking it, could be that her regen so far has been taking precedence, or that her bit is taking its time

null0trooper wrote:
I've never heard of grades being entirely missing. That doesn't mean one district's Grade X offerings will match another district's, whether the students have the support to apply themselves or not.

I didn;t mean grades being missed, seeing as having x years of education is mandated by law. I meant that say not allo districts have a seperate middle school at all. And which grades are in which school varies somewhat.

konzill wrote:

null0trooper wrote:
I've never heard of grades being entirely missing. That doesn't mean one district's Grade X offerings will match another district's, whether the students have the support to apply themselves or not.

I didn't mean grades being missed, seeing as having x years of education is mandated by law. I meant that say not all districts have a separate middle school at all. And which grades are in which school varies somewhat.

and it varies even within districts... the High School I attended (9-12) was funneled into by some grade schools that covered k-8 and others that were k-5 with another school picking up 6-8

I checked out this website http://www.greatschools.org/ and it's interesting to see the grades covered by different schools within an area... within mine there are PK-1, PK-4, K-4, K-5, K-6, 1-12 and so on just at the low end...

Arcanist Lupus wrote: Also, Jadis has had a ton of roommate problems. Finding a good fit probably trumps grade.

And we have canon evidence that it DOES happen: Jericho (freshman) rooming with Razorback (sophomore), because nobody else wanted to room with Razor. So, yes, it could happen...

The problems Jadis had with roomies fall in two categories:
1- Roomie is scared spitless of Jadis as soon as she finds she's the daughter of Dr. Diabolik.
2- Roomie keeps annoying Jadis with wanting an "in" on the life of crime.

Misty is a powerful TK supergirl and ditzy enough not to stress about elaborate villainous plots, so (1) does not apply. And she's hero-bent, so (2) REALLY does not apply. Maybe whoever assigned Misty to Jadis was trying to teach her a lesson, such as "you don't like having a minion-wannabe roomie? Let's give you a cape-wannabe and see how you handle someone that wants to put you in jail."
Turns out... the scenario didn't happen, and it all worked out. And then Jadis started inviting GLORIANNA of all people to shopping trips. Someone must be disappointed.

Sir Lee wrote: Maybe whoever assigned Misty to Jadis was trying to teach her a lesson, such as "you don't like having a minion-wannabe roomie? Let's give you a cape-wannabe and see how you handle someone that wants to put you in jail."
Turns out... the scenario didn't happen, and it all worked out. And then Jadis started inviting GLORIANNA of all people to shopping trips. Someone must be disappointed.

Alternatively, the cottage parents realized that Jadis' roommate problems weren't really her fault, and it just took a while for them to find a roomie who would be willing to take Jadis as she is. Again, like Jericho and Razorback.

Ugh. I'm gonna be lazy and ask the forum:

"Where did we get the Junior Highs' ages from?"

Edit: Now that A Pocket Full of Tansy has been repaired, things make sense now. Yay!

mostly, the area I grew up was K-6, 7-8, and 9-12. That's the way it is where I live now, too, although there are occasional K-5 and 6-8. 9-12 high school is very, very, very common.

And in MY day...up hill both ways!

More seriously we had Elementary 1-7 and High School 8-12. What were the 8th graders called you ask? Sub-Freshmen. Hows that for humiliating?

^ Well, that explains why Kodiak uses that term.

Where I am it's:
K-5 is Elementary
6-8 is Jr. High/Middle
9-12 is High School

Now there are K-8 schools, but even then 6-8 is considered Jr. High and students move between teachers.

There are some private (J)K-12 schools. Yes that Junior Kindergarten for kids turning 4 before Sep 1. Tuition at the one I looked at runs starts at $12.5 K for 1/2 day Junior Kindergarten .and runs upto $31+K for High School. Look you can saddled with $100K of College debt just for High School.

Los Angeles uses K-5, 6-8, 9-12. I believe that a generation ago it was k-6, 7-9, 10-12, but don't quote me on that.

Riverside Ca. uses K-6 , 7-8, 9-12 As their break ups grade wise.

^ ... Well, that conflicts with none of the other WoG info we've gotten... So, Pre-Teen Manifestations are different from normal? Or, are they just the ones that are high-risk or whatever, like how the teens who get Whateley-ed are the dangerous-er ones or disadvantaged or something? Like, how, if Aqurena's family sitch were better, she wouldn't be at Whateley?

No... There was the "Mutants can't go to normal schools. Are you crazy? Lol! ROFL." WoG! Haha!

So, 10 might be "Number of Pre-teen mutants that survive to get to Whateley", just like their older counterparts.

JG wrote: Kids under the age of Jr. High are a notable exception to the usual mutant rules. In whateley year 2 i wanna say there are six or 7 grade school age kids total, and not a huge amount more of Jr. High kids. The Whateley kid count doesn't include the non-high school kids who are basically there primarily for medical reasons, rather than education.

Anyone manifesting before puberty is in a world of shit, and rather like little Diz needing a power frame to restrain her PK field as seen when chaka went to hawthorne, almost every one has too much power and not remotely enough control. They invariably wind up in hawthorne, surrounded by big kids who don't want to hang out with the brats, and when their powers go hit they tend to DEFINE the phrase "dangerous to self and others."

The kids are more undergoing a homeschool/tutoring style program at whateley, and for the most part don't join classes with the froshes. Most of why they would even be on campus is medical monitoring so they don't accidentally kill themselves or random family, friends and bystanders. Kids who manifest before puberty are more likely to be tragedies than survive long enough to get TO puberty.

Whateley can be an awesome place. But if you aren't one of the kids in emerson, dickinson, whitman, twain or poe? You're in the isolation ward for the safety of those around you, or yourself, or both.

Kids in america often peaking puberty due to dietary crap is pretty much the only reason the Jr. High program existed in the first place.

He he, JG put the Melvillains in the isolation ward.

When did each of the 2006-2007 Junior High kids get to Whateley?

Were any of the 2006-2007 Freshmen, Junior High kids?

WMG: Freya as JH Kid in past.

Malady wrote: When did each of the 2006-2007 Junior High kids get to Whateley?

It varies. Some got in September 2006, like most other kids. Some got earlier. I suspect Angelina (Ember) might have arrived earlier, she was rather "at home" in Hawthorne when we first saw her.

Were any of the 2006-2007 Freshmen, Junior High kids?

Almost certainly. No, actually, I'm pretty sure that there was a mention somewhere that a high-school character had been in the JHS program. But I can't recall who.

I believe Palantir was in 8th grade in 06-07, so she'd be a freshman now...

Interesting thought... There's 16 Junior Highs in 2016-2017... Ember graduated, but what about the Junior Highs that come in during the timeskip? ... Do we know how old Miranda, Pahelee, and Shifty are?

... I wonder how many rumors Ember's contributed to, being the only student with such continuity of generations... Not like the teachers are likely to spread rumors... Other than Imp...

No-one who's a student in G1 is still a student in G2.

Astrodragon wrote: No-one who's a student in G1 is still a student in G2.

Unless Sara comes back?

Expelled for excessive truancy.

Let me sum it up:

Mathematically, there should be one or two students in Gen2 who might have seen the Gen1 protagonists as students first-hand. I mean, if there were any fifth-graders in the 2009-2010 school year, they should be senior in the 2016-2017 school year (barring anything like being held back a grade, dying, being put in an extradimensional limbo etc.)

However, dramatically there isn't any, in practical terms. Why? Well, because such a student:
- would be too young to be more than background noise to the students of the 2010 class (the main Gen1 protagonists), and even with the 2011 class (the new batch of Gen1 protagonists)
- they would be Seniors, that is, too old to socialize with the Gen2 protagonists.

I mean, how many seniors did we really get to know in Gen1? There's Kodiak (who was then conveniently held back to the Class of 2008), and that's pretty much it. Glorianna got some reasonable screen time, but we didn't really get to know her well. There were a few seniors who were semi-regular fixtures on the stories (Automa-Tech, Fixx, Oiler, Peril, Poise and Tidewater) but were never really developed enough to be more than flat characters. All the rest? Pretty much cardboard cutouts. If you think about it, the Grunts have a lot of screen time, but the two senior Grunts (Breaker and Deadeye) have hardly any lines at all -- the most developed Grunts are Mule (Class of 2009) and Bunker (Class of 2010). That's because, generally speaking, it's not considered cool for a senior to hang out with the froshes. Breaker would do Parkour runs with Aquerna, and he might even help her out, but outside of that he didn't socialize with her.

So, the most you could expect would be a senior reminiscing about stuff they saw from afar when they were an itty-bitty five-grader, like, say, something really impressive that Fey did in her senior year... but you still would need a rather good excuse to have the senior in the story at all.

And the witness would have been 10 years old at most when they saw the event, six years previously. That's about half their lifetime of memories back (discounting the first few years which most people don't retain any memories of). How accurate do you expect the reporting to be?

So, if the authors see the necessity for having such an inaccurate description of an event put in a story, they could do it. But dramatically, they don't have to, and probably shouldn't. It would be much less contrived to have the school staff play the role of "remember when the Kimbas pulled that off?" than to use a senior. Unless, that is, the author wanted an wildly inaccurate reporting of such an event -- teachers might give too much away.

JG wrote: Gen 1 students who are teachers in Gen 2 are no longer PoV characters per se, and exist to further the development of plots for the Gen 2 kids who are the main focus. Rather like Headmistress Carson and Gunny Bardue, they are intended (and should remain) fuel for the telling of the new stories about the Gen 2 kids.

Someone either is a Point of view character or is not a point of view character, there is no state of being sort of a point of view character. Kayda most definitely is a point of view character in G2, as is Tansy and Eldric. I know this because I've read some of the G2 stories where they are the point of view characters. So yea that Idea didn't last very long.

You may be confusing POV character with focal character. But these are two separate concepts. But then again students are hardly mentioned in the Sorrow of Red October and having Laura show up in the last scene doesn't make it a story about her. It is a story about Kayda and Tansey.

So much would depend on how the JH is set up.

In my area, we have a variety of set ups... Some schools are k-12. Some are Elementary and High (k-6, 7-17). Some are Elementary, Middle and High (k-5, 6-8, 9-12). There is one place with a "9th grade center", they go k-5, 6-8, 9, and then 10-12... It can get confusing. I have personally never observed a middle school with 5th grade in it, though it is possible. Mainly because many schools in my area have shrunk or grown over the years and we have to move the students to where we can put them.

Whateley appears to be a 9-12 high school. We do not know the junior high situation fully. If we assume it includes as low as 5th grade, then there is a potential for up to 7 years on campus. The class of 2010 should have no common time on campus with the class of 2020 (a 10 year gap). Only someone that failed at least 3 grades would have any overlap. I will check my stats and add the percentages for average failed grades and if I can find them, percentage of students that fail 3 or more grades.

EDIT} Ok, USA numbers follow. As of 2009 (last year I have the complete study on my computer): 85% of students never repeat a grade. 9.6% of students repeated one elementary grade only, 3.2% of students repeated a secondary grade only, 1.3% repeated more than one grade from k-12 inclusive. I believe the "official" number of students for Whateley is 650 or so, that means 8.5 students should have failed 2 or more grades. The study I have does not break down multiple failed grades any further than k-6/7-12/multiple failed grades. However, I think the likelihood of a person failing 3 or more grades from 5-12 is very low, much lower than failing 2 grades in k-12. At best, I would think there might be one (one) student of the population based on the trend that students are more likely to repeat a grade in 1-3 and 5-7 with the percentage of repeated grades decreasing sharply after each of those areas, particularly as the percentage of repeated grades is lower in the middle/high school range than in the elementary range.

The school doesn't have a "junior high program" as such, except as a shorthand name. It actually consists of individualized programs for the few students who need it. Think of it as home-schooling, only done at Whateley instead of, well, at home.
As for age, Angelina (Ember) is a third grader.

I understand that, but it is far easier to say junior high program than "multiple individual education plans for diverse learners" (I hate writing IEP's...). You can blame me, the Navy or that I work in schools and coach for my excessive verbage.

Sir Lee wrote: The school doesn't have a "junior high program" as such, except as a shorthand name.

Well, that, and Mrs. Grimes handles all of them. And has been used thrice in canon . So, it might be basically an administrative term?

^^^^^ - MM2ss - Discussion on "What is a Junior High kid", happens from Page 3

...

... FFFFF. Magique can get info from her big sister's BF! A prime source!

My apologies, I digressed too far into my thoughts while typing. I was going over the set ups I am familiar with and trying to relate them to the conversation. It seems I went and typed out the entire train of thought and repeated the prior post to a large degree. I shall hang my head in shame and stand in the corner for a bit.

Yes, what I MEANT was that the JHP is not actually organized as a junior high school, and has no preset limits on which grades are eligible and such. It's a case-by-case thing, and "Junior High Program" is a label that is convenient to describe this.

Actually, I'm slightly surprised that Ms. Grimes has the time to handle the program by herself. I mean, she also teaches regular classes and probably has other responsibilities in the Magical Arts department. We know that she teaches "Magic 050" for the Three Little Witches, but does she also teach, say, English, History and Math to the JH crowd?

Hmmm... probably not. Even if Whateley uses the old-fashioned "one-classroom school" approach for the JHP, with students of different ages in the same classroom (which would be reasonable, given the small number of students), there's no reason not to leverage the various talents available at the school. So, someone in the Math department would spend a few hours a week teaching JH math and so on. Perhaps organized in half-day blocks instead of one-hour blocks.

If we were to assume a "one room schoolhouse" type of approach, I would suspect it would be more like is done in many smaller schools. The teachers change rooms instead of the students. We used that here for a few years with 4th and 5th graders to get them used to having different teachers in grades 6-12. It had a few happy side effects as well, the best math teacher could focus on math, the best English teacher on language arts, etc. The students for those two years showed substantial improvement on all areas of the SAT. The other advantage is that you don't have to deal with not having things like lockers for the younger kids (along with forgotten combinations) and you avoid making a younger kid drag 30 pounds of books down the hall every hour or so.

Thus, I would suspect that Grimes is more like the "coordinator" for the program. In addition to that she teaches some classes. Then Barney might teach history/social science (poor kids). Maybe Carson used to do the English portion. As best I recall, the "required" subjects would be Language Arts, Social Science, Science, Math, a PE component, and then anything the state or district decides is also needed (it was "agribusiness" in 7th grade and "health" in 8th grade at my school). The Magic 050 fills a science if I understand the Whateley Universe correctly (evidently Mystic Arts fall under Science, and alchemy is mighty close to chemistry, so fair enough).

Lastly, on the "one room school" concept. Some of the smaller private schools in my area have very few students and teachers... So much so that they rotate their course offerings. Thus a 9th, 10, 11th and 12 grade student might all be taking the same science course. Usually this is done in schools that offer only the basic sciences. For example: Physical, Earth and Space, Biology, then an intro to chemistry or intro to physics type of course. It allows a small staff/school to still offer a fairly complete education even when students are of disparate ages.

JG wrote: Grimes isn't alone.
In my personal headcannon, the person who misses the beginning-of-the-year staff meeting gets the JHP and has to coordinate among the teachers for the little ones to get their education time..

You are more right than you imagine... Never miss a faculty meeting unless you want whatever new job is being discussed. One school I helped coach at picked their new head coach/athletic director that way. No one wanted the job (5 years of losing seasons is not a slump, it is a tradition), one coach missed a meeting and was unanimously voted in. Even I voted for him...

I imagine that they have 3 or 4 classes "one room schoolhouse" style, and other classes where they either join in a regular high school class or go to a power specific class. Shifty heads off to Shifting 1, Miranda is tutored by Fubar or someone else, Ember heads out to Range 4, and so on. Others may even leave the "one room schoolhouse" to go to Algebra with the high school students.

MM2ss you get strange things happening in big high schools too. In my freshman Biology class my lab partner was a Senior that was trying to pass the class to graduate. He would have been a Dylan at Whateley. I only saw him in Biology, but he was friendly in class. The year after I graduated the state was changing the requirements for graduation. Math and Science were going from one year required to three, the Math Department was trying to figure out how to get students enough credits to graduate when it took some of these student two or three years to pass "Consumer Math." Other classes were the same as my Biology class where students of all ages were in the same class as they tried to get enough classes to graduate.

So it's likely that Whateley offers courses that range from "Consumer Math" to the stuff that Kayda is doing. Each class may not be offered each semester. My high school had a minimum student requirement, but Kayda's Math class may be along that "one room schoolhouse" pattern where there are a half dozen students doing Graduate Level Math Classes in the same room, even if they are studying different stuff.

Sir Lee wrote:

Malady wrote: Were any of the 2006-2007 Freshmen, Junior High kids?

Almost certainly. No, actually, I'm pretty sure that there was a mention somewhere that a high-school character had been in the JHS program. But I can't recall who.

Found her! It's Spooky !

Been there since she was 12, and is 14, now.

That piece of story background is for "normal" mutants, right? What about other sources of powers?

I have not re-read the story for this post, but I think Sara got her fellow student Gypsy pregnant. The baby might go on ten just in time for the Gen2 stories. Depending on if she (he?) inherits Sara's powers, and the policy of the Whateley administration at the time, she may be a potential character for the Gen2 stories.

Rabiata wrote: That piece of story background is for "normal" mutants, right? What about other sources of powers?

I think it's been mentioned elsewhere that dynamorph prefer to be hosted by adults. It's possible that in the case of a pre-teen getting one, it would be removed "for their own good." Situations likely to result in an origin could also be called "child endangerment".

The sort of paranormal entities that grant Imbued or Batson Factor powers don't have to worry about CPS or labor laws. It might be difficult for a child to engage in a magical contract themself, but their parent or guardian could sign on their behalf as a guarantor or even pledge them as collateral.

It may be a bad idea to leave power gems where a rugrat can get to it, but it could still happen.

Rabiata wrote: I have not re-read the story for this post, but I think Sara got her fellow student Gypsy pregnant. The baby might go on ten just in time for the Gen2 stories. Depending on if she (he?) inherits Sara's powers, and the policy of the Whateley administration at the time, she may be a potential character for the Gen2 stories.

I think it's Donna Bell who was knocked up. Since Sara was no longer human at the time, the results could be anything. Being a great-grandchild of Shub-Niggurath, the prospects of normalcy aren't vey good.

Malady wrote:

Sir Lee wrote:

Malady wrote: Were any of the 2006-2007 Freshmen, Junior High kids?

Almost certainly. No, actually, I'm pretty sure that there was a mention somewhere that a high-school character had been in the JHS program. But I can't recall who.

Found her! It's Spooky !

Been there since she was 12, and is 14, now.

Can someone check the wiki? That link seems to be dead to me. Yep, Charter is still telling me 'no such page'.

Anne wrote: Can someone check the wiki? That link seems to be dead to me. Yep, Charter is still telling me 'no such page'.

... That's 'cause I got the Domain wrong. This should work. Yep.

crystalhall.wikia.com/wiki/Spooky

Yeah, but then, would it kill Wikia to have a server redirect stripping the "www" from URLs?

Sir Lee wrote: Yeah, but then, would it kill Wikia to have a server redirect stripping the "www" from URLs?

Eh? First time, I accidentally dropped the ".com". Second time, I was typing it out, so I dropped the "www."

Although, I guess you might have gotten it, and just typed wrong?

I woulda been smarter to go to the page, copy the address bar, and just paste it, yeah.

No, my point was that it's Wikia's fault that the link didn't work. Probably more than 70% of users reflexively add "www" to the beginning of all URLs; most large sites have some way to deal with it -- either they accept both forms (with or without www), or have a redirect to one format to the other. Wikia IS a large site; this is something they should have taken care of years ago.

I'm running Firefox, and I think the browser handles it when I type a url-ish thing, without the "www".

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Moving back to Whateley Pre-teens... Gen2:

From Dorms of Our Lives Part 2:

Is Essemmelle a Junior High kid, or just hangs out with them a lot?

And all these kids are Junior Highs? I think we might only be missing the identities of around 3, if so.