Community lot schools - a kind of not really tutorial

I'm still feeling my way around community lot schools but I've had a couple of requests for a post on how I run my schools, so I'll attempt to explain it a bit here.

The most important thing is Inge's school set. I could not run my school without this. It makes everything so much easier. I use the set as is, except I have edited all of the items in Sims 2 Categorizer so that they are available in the community build catalog. The set was designed to run a residential lot school but I haven't run into any problems at all running my schools on community lots, apart from the initial placement issues (now solved with Sims 2 Cat).

I think the easiest way for me to do this is to go through each piece of the set and explain how I personally use it. This is by no means a comprehensive tutorial. There are a lot of options to this set that I don't use. Some will be self-explanatory when you look at the pieces in your own game and some you'll have to figure out on your own. I also don't use all the pieces, so I won't be commenting on those.

The school bell is what I used to set the principal. Whoever you set as the principal can also act as a teacher (more on that later on). I also use the school bell to start and end school for the day.

The pupil token is what you use to enrol students in your school. When you click "enrol", you'll see all the surnames of the families in your hood that have teens or children (townies are included). You'll need one pupil token for each student. Once you enrol the Sim, the token will change to a picture of the Sim and you'll have the option to assign them to a particular class (1-4). You might not need the class option at first but as your hood grows, you might be grateful for a simple way to split the kids into smaller groups! You can expel a student at any time by clicking on their pupil token. I have found I need to do this at the high school when I've sent a former student to college or at the primary school when a student has moved on to high school.

In my high school, I've hidden the tokens in the roof. The roof is inaccessible but because any enrolled Sims immediately teleport to the lot and become selectable as soon as you "start school", it's easy for me to teleport them down (this is an Insimenator option). I generally prefer to hide hacked objects in the foundation but it's not possible to do with these, unless you make a really elevated foundation. When you build your school, you might want to plan a way to hide these tokens, if it's something that would bother you.

Each of my classrooms has a classroom controller. Set a Sim as the teacher (this can be any adult or elder currently on the lot) and then choose Gradework or Classroom period as the subject. With gradework, your Sims will sit at their desks working from their workbooks (more on this later). Classroom period is what you would want to run a music or art class (or anything where the kids didn't need to be sitting at a desk for the whole time). The Classroom period will keep the kids in the room but not tied to their desks. This will let you direct them to paint, play music, build up their badges on crafting stations or whatever else you happen to have set up in the room.

The classroom door is fairly self-explanatory. Just make sure you note what Inge says about making sure green arrow is pointing in towards the classroom. I personally don't use the classroom door any more. No matter what way I had the arrow pointing, I'd always get Sims getting stuck. The other school objects will work just fine if you decide to use regular doors as well.

You have a choice between the classroom table and workbook or the school class place. I use the class place, because it allows me to use any kind of table I like. I just put down a class place for each student I want in the room (it looks like a pencil and you should be able to see it in all my classrooms in my most recent school post). As I understand it, the classroom table works the same way but it's one piece and you obviously won't be able to choose what kind of table to use.

And that, readers, is about the it. As always, you're welcome to leave comments and I'll elaborate/clarify any particular points you like or answer any more questions you have.