This article presents a preliminary analysis of a rural junior high school. This school is situated in S town, J county, Shandong province, and, in keeping with the procedure followed for naming the majority of schools in China by location of school + type of school, this school is called S Junior High. J county is one of Shandong's poor counties, and S town is a farming town with no industrial enterprises and a few stores. The town has a total population of 50,000, 98 percent of which consists of farmers; teachers are the largest group not working in agriculture. The farmers' sources of income are planting crops, raising livestock, trade in small commercial products, and temporary labor away from home. S Junior High was established as part of the national effort to implement compulsory education and has been in operation for more than 20 years. Here, the author provides an ethnographic account of boundaries between school and community in rural areas.