[Shawn]

Growing up in Massachusetts, I frequently visited lots of pre-WWII high schools similar to what have been shown in this thread so far for sports and sometimes for AP classes or SAT stuff. What often doesn't come across in movies and TV shows set in these schools is how crappy the student experience can be. Depending on how much money the school district has spent on renovations over the years, a science class with lab work can be like stepping back in time. My high school was a late 1960s modernist mistake - but we had a freaking mass spectrometer. A neighboring high school was set in a gorgeous neoclassical building from 1890s; the building physically couldn't support the HVAC system needed for basic chem hoods.

What always gets me is when I see those California open campus style high schools in movies and shows (think Clueless or Veronica Mars). I have no way of relating to that student experience. My wife went through the Cupertino-Sunnyvale school system in the 90s and claims to have never had an indoor cafeteria. I think she's massaging the truth on that one - it's gotta rain sometime in the South Bay. But I visited her elementary school once and it legit did not have an indoor cafeteria. That seems like a lawsuit just waiting to strike.