At the school there is a certain both academical and internal hierarchy among those who attend. These can be divided into teachers & staff and students, whose have their own roles and place within the hierarchy.
Teachers and staff
There is an obvious pecking order even among teachers, but generally they get along well with each other, and their ranking is more based on their teacher roles with the principal having the most power both on duty and as a person. However, their age and teaching experience affects their internal relationships and attitudes as well: Mr. Herman is highly regarded as an old and seasoned teacher, while Victor tends to get the shorter end of the stick being a new teacher, even if he is also the vice principal.
Students usually address to teachers by their surname with the honorific "Mr." at the beginning.
Teachers
Principal - Edward Ross (47) A tall and charismatic man, Edward is well respected both by the other staff of the school and by his students. Although he spends majority of his time in his office doing paper work and doesn’t take part in teaching himself, he does his extremely best representing the school and fighting for its rights. He is known to be a handsome yet intimidating man, and his light grey eyes are noted to be especially piercing. He is sometimes called the lion king due to his enormous hair and beard, and the man is in no way against being called that. Edward is extremely good at presenting himself and knows what kind of situation requires what kind of action, but he is generally known to be a relaxed and humorous man - traits that have most certainly helped him to climb up to where he is now.
It’s rumored he originally hated being a teacher when he was young, but after becoming a family man he found a new kind of love for the profession and its importance, and ever since he has been working hard first in teaching and then in handling the school’s business. Edward has a wife and three children, only one of them still living at home.
Vice principal & dormitory watch - Victor Courtenay (25) (Also biology/anatomy teacher)
A fresh new teacher, he got his position mostly with his extremely good grades, but it would be a lie to say good relationships didn’t play a part into this. Victor is a good-natured and childlike teacher whose top priority is to consider his students and teach them through more considerate methods. Although he tries his best, Victor is prone to hassling and he tends to act a little too casual with his students, making him popular and respected among the boys but raising eyebrows when it comes to some other teachers.
A bit of a loser, but attentive and enthusiastic about his work. He believes he can make a difference if he really works hard on it, and in Victor the new ideals of more humane teachers are already showing. He sleeps in the same floor as first years and act as the head teacher of the dormitories.
History teacher - Keith Newman(35)
A man on the shorter side, Keith compensates his small frame with his army-like strictness and high expectations to his students. He is demanding and expects only the best from his students, making him the nightmare of those who don’t like his subject and who don’t usually do their homework. In his childhood Keith got used to harsh punishments, and he keeps the tradition alive as well as he just can: he often puts his students to stand in the corner of the class if they mess up, and he is known to sometimes slap students on the fingers with pointer. Although this is seen as rather inhumane among other teachers, during this era a physical punishment was still an acceptable way of punishing, and as such there isn’t much others can do about it. However, despite his terrifying methods, Keith also has his good and supportive side: he doesn’t look down on those he can see to really try their best, and simply being bad at his subject isn’t a reason for him to get mad at anyone. Although his methods are cruel, he genuinely wants his students to learn and thinks of his teaching style to be efficient and rewarding to anyone who at least tries.
Keith is unmarried and apparently also doesn’t wish for a romance. It’s rumored his fianceé died in an accident when they were still young, and Keith never wanted to marry anyone else.
Literature teacher - Isaac Herman(57)
Although already an older man, Isaac’s age doesn’t seem to bother him the least bit: he is still as energetic as ever and is very passionate about literature and teaching his students. Unlike many other teachers, Isaac thinks a teacher can never know enough, and he is constantly furthering his own studies and keeping an open and honest mind to things. His health isn’t always the best and he knows this, but it has not made him any less childlike in spirit: he likes doing things together with his students, and he tries to adjust his teaching style so that students could actually enjoy literature. However, Isaac can still be a little old fashioned at times, and tends to stick to some old conventions very strongly. Isaac is a widow whose wife died of illness over ten years ago, and he has two now adult children who already live their own life. To escape the loneliness of his home, Isaac lives in the school area as well and enjoys the liveliness of it.
Other staff
Janitor (currently none; replaced by the PE teacher)
Kitchen
Washing area
Cleaners
Food delivery
Students
The students of Lottenberg have their very own ranking order, and knowing it is crucial if you don't wish to start trouble. The easiest way to approach the hierarchy is to do it through year groups and possible special roles.
Prefects
Prefects are generally highly regarded within the school and they are very respected, their close involvement with the teachers and general decision making perhaps one of the biggest reason for this automatic approval. Prefects are often students who are liked by default anyway as they're so involved with other students, and so the most social and fair students tend to step out for this job.
Each year group has 1-2 prefects depending on the size of the class and how many volunteer. Teachers usually make the decision when it comes to picking the students they deem most appropriate for the job. This also means once in a while students who have caused trouble in the past are made into prefects with the idea of learning responsibility in mind.
Prefects have their own common room they can use during school hours, and their main work includes helping teachers, arranging school activities, acting as a communication bridge between students and teachers and making sure everyone has left the common room in time and gone to bed. They often end up doing other sort of odd jobs too as a way to learn responsibility and see first hand what leadership is like, and so they can carry on duties such as welcoming visitors or touring new students around.
Year groups
Although there are no uniforms to indicate who belongs to which year group, the classes are relatively small so that everyone can recognize at least their own classmate. First years are always lowest ranked by default and older students, especially third years, often engage in behavior similar to fagging or hazing, where they make first years to serve them and are also allowed to humiliate them as long as school rules are not broken (although this often happens anyway). How these first years are treated is often up to what the year group for third years are like as a whole, and so this can range from a couple of hazing rituals at the start of the year to downright making first years serve them personally the whole year, although some teachers don't look at this behavior all that well.
Third years have the most power within the school and their orders are usually rather absolute, while third years are usually left alone as the power dynamics are more focused on first and third years. Second years have, however, power over first year as well, but are usually not allowed to boss them around to the same degree third years do, and stepping out of their line is often met with a punishment.
Popularity
There are multiple factors that affect each student's popularity: their age, possible other roles (prefect), their family's wealth and reputation as well as their own behavior at school. This makes it so that even if your parents are not particularly wealthy or known it's still possible to rank up in the popularity, and likewise even an otherwise unpleasant student might have a high popularity because of his family's name and wealth.
Those on the top are usually allowed to get away with a lot of things and are admired by other students. They usually also have the power to punish those who have done something wrong. Middle tier consists of a wide variety of people, those who are almost there on the top and those who are almost at the lowest tier. Low tier students are usually lonely and don't have friends, and are generally avoided. The treatment can vary from tolerating their presence to avoiding and downright bullying, and low tier students usually hold no word against those higher than their own rank, meaning people will almost always side with more popular kids even if they have done wrong. Those whose tier is vague are kind of wild cards and might range from "feared and respected" to "so mysterious we can't classify him" and their role can be flexible within the hierarchy. However, vague roles usually are placed within low to middle tier.
For the main characters (excluding Jonathan) their rankings are roughly the following:
-------------------------------- High tier -------------------------------- Claude - Prefect and generally considered one of the highest ranked Leon - Charismatic and older than the others, Leon is very liked but not quite high up there as Claude ------------------------------- Middle tier ----------------------------- Walter - People like his wits and consider him funny, but Walter himself doesn't bother climbing up the social ladder Rick - He is very liked by the third years, but denies their advances very brutally -------------------------------- Vague / borderline low tier --------------------------------- Jet - People are afraid of him and don't want to involve themselves with Jet, and likewise Jet keeps his own distance Thomas - He is absent so much and doesn't socialize with others, so he is kind of a wild card