Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the movie when the younger version of Sam is blowing out her candles, the amount of ice cream in the cup next to her changes within seconds. (00:02:10)
Continuity mistake: After young Sam loses her father in the Northridge earthquake (noted in voiceover), she appears alone on the ball field, at home plate. In the close-up much of the area is in shadow around her, but in the next wideshot the entire area is in sunlight with only the fence/backstop casting thin shadows. (00:04:30)
Continuity mistake: After young Sam has carried the box of her belongings up to her new bedroom in the attic, she lies down on her bed and as the camera pulls back the window shade is all the way up. It cuts to a wideshot as the camera still pulls back in the rain, and the shade is lower now. (00:05:20)
Continuity mistake: When Sam is at Carter's house to give him a lift to school, Carter (in his Snoop Dizzle look) is holding the script in his left hand and the bag's strap falls off his right shoulder when he sits down. Next shot, the script is in his right hand and the strap is back up on his shoulder. (00:11:00)
Continuity mistake: After Sam loses the two parking spaces to Shelby and then Austin, when it cuts to Shelby, Caitlin and Madison walking down the corridor pushing everyone aside, Madison is holding her textbooks with the books' spines facing forward, then facing the opposite way, and finally back again. (00:13:35)
Continuity mistake: At the start, when Sam is reading the text message from Austin stating "Where have u been? We haven't talked...", on the cell display there are two bars in the battery icon in this close-up, but as she replies "We talked this morning", the battery icon is empty in the semi close-up. Then, when she reads his reply in the close-up, once again there are two bars in the icon. (00:14:45)
Continuity mistake: When Sam is sitting on the friendship circle you can see that her legs are crossed the entire time. When she texts Austin you see her legs and they are not crossed. In the shots before and after this one her legs are crossed. (00:14:50)
Continuity mistake: At the dance Sam is wearing silver non-platform stilettos with silvery nail polish on her toenails. As soon as Fiona and the "Siamese" twins leave the diner, in the kitchen a much relieved Sam shifts her white gown and she is wearing white platforms and her toenail polish is quite gone now. (00:32:35 - 00:50:45)
Continuity mistake: When Fiona picks up the twins at the dance, the rearview mirror on Fiona's Jag disappears on the way back to the diner, but reappears when she pulls into the diner parking lot, then it disappears again. (00:46:45)
Continuity mistake: After the dance, when Fiona and the twins are in the Jaguar, and Carter and Sam are in the Mercedes, all driving to the diner, the views of the side streets they pass change back and forth, between close-ups and wideshots. (00:47:25)
Continuity mistake: When Fiona and the "Siamese" twins are at the diner, Sam pops up from behind the window counter with some flour on her baseball cap, but in Sam's next close-up in the kitchen there is instantly much more flour on the cap. (00:50:40)
Continuity mistake: When Austin is putting up the "Have you seen Cinderella?" fliers, in one shot he puts up the second flier on the blue door on the lower left side of another flier, but in the following shots, the flier is near the center, then to the right, and then back near the center again. (00:53:05)
Continuity mistake: At school, when Austin is putting up the Cinderella fliers, he tapes the fourth flier on the bulletin board under the word "pep" and over the letters "Fri" in the word Friday. Next shot, the flier has moved to the left, and is taped beside both words "pep" and "Friday". (00:53:30)
Continuity mistake: When Sam and Carter arrive at the pool, before Carter reveals himself to Shelby, the poolside gate and banner cast a shadow on the ground, to the right. After Carter is belittled and splashed, when he joins Sam the shadows cast are now longer and farther back. (Visible on fullscreen DVD.) (00:55:15)
Continuity mistake: When Carter is splashed as the twins jump into the pool, only one side of his head/hair is wet. In the next shot, all of his hair is wet. (00:56:50)
Continuity mistake: When Austin is forced to sit on the bench to meet the bachelorettes, the large words "friendship circle" are above the bench. In the wideshots Austin sits in front of the "ship" part of the words and Ryan is in front of "circle", but in the close-ups Austin's in front of "friend" and Ryan's in front of "ship", about 2 ft to their right (viewer's left). (00:57:20)
Continuity mistake: When David and Ryan force Austin to participate in the bachelorette 'Dating Game', the CD player sits on the bench beside Austin. When David introduces bachelorette 2, a yellow tape marker suddenly appears on the bench in front of the CD player, which promptly disappears in following shots. (Visible on fullscreen DVD.) (00:57:45)
Continuity mistake: At the car wash, when Gabriella grabs the window squeegee and threatens Brianna, she holds it with the sponge edge facing away from Brianna, but next shot as Brianna runs away the sponge edge suddenly faces the opposite direction. (01:03:45)
Continuity mistake: When Gabriella chases Brianna into the car wash, Brianna knocks over a large metal bucket, yellow pails, etc onto the ground, but in the last shot one yellow pail is back against the wall and the metal bucket sits upright, among other changes. (01:03:50)
Continuity mistake: After the twins enter the car wash, in the first shot when Gabriella walks through the vertical black cloth strips, with squeegee in hand, she is wearing the large hoop earrings. When it cuts to the next shot, as she shouts, "Bri?," her earrings are suddenly gone. This occurs before Brianna climbs onto Gabriella's shoulders. (01:04:00)
Answer: Yes, this happens in most schools. The reason is that students are more likely to pay attention to announcements that are not made by a boring school employee. In many American schools, we have a phenomenon known as "home room". This is a short period usually first thing in the morning that is non-instructional when announcements are made, forms are filled out, and administrivial functions that don't have anything to do with any one class. At schools that don't have this, they have a thing called "study hall" or "independent study" which is a period where you sit in a classroom and work on your assignments, special functions for the school admin. like you are talking about are frequently done at these periods by students who are "working in the office" rather than studying. Then, there are schools that actually have classes in journalism, broadcasting, etc. where this activity would be part of the schoolwork.
Myridon