High school

High school refers to the location as well as the advancing period of one's education before entering college or the workforce. The duration of high school classes is four years, divided into grades 9-12 and generally runs from late summer into late spring of every year. The average age of a high school student is between 14-17. The denominatons of high school grade levels are identified as freshman, sophmore, junior and senior. The highest managing authority of a high school is called the principal. When you are bad, you get sent to the principal's office. Some schools may offer the option of dropping out at age sixteen. When you graduate you receive a diploma and get to wear a robe and a square cap with a tassle.

In fiction
High schools are used with great regularity in the teen drama genre as well as many comedies and some horror and/or supernatural fantasy.

One notable school in TV fiction is Sunnydale High School, which is featured in seasons 1-3 of the WB Network television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Before it's explosive destruction at the end of the show, the school was located atop a mystical portal called a Hellmouth in the town of Sunnydale, California. Because of this, the town of Sunnydale was a veritable magnet for various supernatural entities, in particular demons and vampires.

In 1990, Hanna-Barbera Productions produced a short-lived animated series called Gravedale High which starred the voice talent of comedian Rick Moranis as Max Schneider, a human teacher who gets a job at Gravedale High - a school catering exclusively to monsters. The student body is comprised of teenage analogs of classic horror character tropes such as Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The 2011 Teen Wolf television series makes use of Beacon Hills High School as one of it's main settings. The school is an analog of Beacontown High School, which was the primary setting of the original 1985 Teen Wolf movie. Nearly every episode from season one of the series took place or made reference to the school in one matter or another. Beacon Hills High School is known for it's championship lacrosse team, which is coached by the seemingly psychotic Bobby Finstock. The school's student body consists of several notable characters including werewolf lacross player Scott McCall, his best friend Stiles Stilinsky, his girlfriend Allison Argent, his rival Jackson Whittemore and Jackson's former girlfriend Lydia Martin. Scott's werewolf mentor, Derek Hale is a former student at Beacon Hills.