When did "junior high school" become "middle school" and why?

I AM IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA....AS A KID....ELEMENTARY SCHOOL WAS K - 6TH GRADE....JUNIOR HIGH WAS 7TH & 8TH....AND HIGH SCHOOL WAS 9TH TO 12TH.


THE YEAR AFTER I GRADUATED 8TH GRADE AND WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL THEY CHANGED THE TERM TO MIDDLE SCHOOL AND MOVED 6TH GRADE INTO IT.....SO...LIKE 1995/96 ISH.

I'm not really sure. I always assumed it was a regional thing. It's highly variable, because every state in the US has their own rules for what defines "elementary school," the school in-between, and "high school."

I spent most of my primary and secondary education in Illinois, and in the area I [mostly] grew up, we had this setup:

Elementary School - Kindergarten through 6th grade

Junior High - 7th and 8th grade

High School - 9th-12th grade

But I remember hearing about another setup in tv schools and in real ones, where sometimes, they had what was called "Middle School," where the grades were 6th through 8th. I'm guessing the two names refer to the schooling one gets between Primary Education (Elementary School) and Secondary Education (High School).

There are also some places where they would have gigantic schools that covered grades K-12, but I haven't seen many of those.

I’ve always heard the terms used interchangeably. I just looked up the school that I always remember having middle school in the name, and the internet says that it changed from junior high to middle school in 1966.

I’ve personally never seen a school where 9th grade is part of middle school, and not high school though.

That's a great question and I don't know the answer either (My school was referred to as "junior high school" when I went in the early 80s).

Other people here have already mentioned variations of the school grades. Here's another one...a couple of schools in the Columbus (OH) area break up the schools this way:

Elementary: K-3
Intermediate: 4-6
Middle: 7-8
High: 9-12

Different buildings for each level also.

I was in school in the '80s and early '90s in Maine, and at my school it was like this:

K-4: Primary school
5-8: Middle school
7-8: Junior high school (subcategory of middle school)
9-12: High school

My school didn't officially use the term "elementary school" at all; instead using the term "primary school," though people from my parents' generation usually called the earliest grades "elementary school."

for me it was this way.

K-4: Primary school
5-7: Middle school
8-9: Junior high school
10-12: High school

My school district had high schools 9th to 12th grade and elementary schools K to 8th grade. Other districts had junior highs 6th to 9th grade. So the district wanted to reform and add junior highs but they didn't want to disrupt the high schools. So they made middle schools 5th to 8th grade instead.

I am not sure as my siblings and I went to the same school in grade school (except for the 2nd semester of 5th grade and all of 6th grade when my mom and Grandparents homeschooled me) that was kindergarten to 8th grade (and was outside town in the country). So basically there was no junior high/middle school. In 7th and 8th grade I was in a Christian school that was also Kindergarten through 8th grade. So my experience is different than your's. There is a middle school though in the town we lived outside of.