It was a very short lived experiment and my class was stuck in it.

Basically, there were two parts of the middle school: the “JP Woods” building which housed the 6th grade only. Then the Middle School for 7th and 8th grade.

They were on the same campus as the elementary school, which is still there as is the middle school.

Well, the year I was in 6th grade in JP Woods, the ceiling collapsed in my homeroom during a winter snow storm.

Thankfully it happened over a weekend or xmas break – I don’t remember now. But the room was entirely condemned.

So the rest of the school year we met in the teacher’s conference room. Big wooden chairs and table. Maybe we ended up going to another classroom at some point not sure.

Anyway, that was nearly the final death bell for that building, which had spongey floors and leaky ceilings.

I moved up to 7th grade and they did one more year of kids in that JP Woods school, albeit with one fewer classroom.

By the time I graduated 7th grade, I found out that no, I wasn’t going to be graduating in 8th grade at the middle but starting fresh in the high school the next year.

They needed the room to make the middle school hold 6th and 7th instead of 7th and 8th.

So, I never got a 7th grade _or_ 8th grade graduation.

Just straight into the high school.

Pre-frosh we were called.

Way too tiny for that big school. 9th graders can be tiny compared to 12th but 8th graders can be really tiny in comparison as some still haven’t even grown much yet. I was lucky but some of my classmates weren’t.

So I think the year I went to 8th in the high school, they shut down the JP Woods school.

It languished for a few years in its condemned state. They were thinking of converting it to a senior center, which was ridiculous as the building would still be fundamentally unsafe even

if they did some repairs.

They finally smartened up and demolished the building, tore up the blacktop, planted grass, turned into a proper elementary/middle school area.

The 8th-graders-in-the-high-school lasted a total of two years if I remember right: mine the class of 1990 and the the class of 1991 had gone down the halls of the big high school.

But by then I was in Vail-Deane. I’d promised I’d be back to Roselle Park by 10th grade as I didn’t think I’d get a renewed scholarship. But since I did, I stayed.