A northern school, a southern school, a historically Black school, a Native school, and a Spanish missionary school on the west coast.
Or just something that fits in with American history.
as a side, I also think Canada would have at least four: one in Québec where everything is taught primarily in French (it serves the Acadian population in the Maritimes too, but anyone can attend the school so long as they’re fluent); one in Ontario (serves everything east of Manitoba); one on the west coast (either in the forests in BC or in the Rockies); and one in the northern territories, on one of the shitload of islands.
All the schools would look like the railroad hotels, bc those are the closest things we have to castles here. The one in the territories looks like Château Montebello though.
(Saskatchewan gets nothing bc it’s flat where are you supposed to hide a school behind corn?!?!)
yeeeeeeees
Up until the 1870s, wizarding schools in North America were small, insular, and devoted to a particular cultural group. During the 18th century, New York City alone had 4 schools: The old Dutch Haardhuis (steadily losing popularity), the fancy new British school that met in across the street from St. Paul’s, the Swedish school consisting of only 3 students and their tutor, and the secret door in the Bowery which led (if you knocked three times and threw a pinch of ashes into a barrel) to where slaves and black freedmen learned magic at night.
Americans come from varied experiences, varied backgrounds, and no one school can service them all. Besides, the agrarian year would have prevented most magical kids from leaving home long-term. Also immigrant wizards would have brought the culture they tried to blend in with: A French Catholic from Maine wouldn’t want to go to school with a Spanish Floridian or Pennsylvania Dutch. I don’t care what anyone says about international magic cooperation.
I think with the advent of the latter industrial revolution post-Civil War and the attitudes of nativism and cultural assimilation, particularly towards immigrants, the American magical community would have consolidated into at least 5 major schools. I headcanon Ilvermorny, a school in New Orleans, Area 51 (established post-WWII as a technomancy school. WIZARDS IN SPAAAACE), the Bermuda Triangle (who offer course loads in Spanish, French, and English), and a school in Santa Cruz, CA (almost as old as Ilvermorny) not-so cunningly disguised as a Mystery Spot.
There are still small schools and insular communities. One community of wizards in Illinois got away with appearing un-charmed for 103 years before the US wizarding government stepped in. Their non-maj neighbors assumed they were a religious sect because of the weird clothes and antiquated technology. Both the Japanese and Chinese schools of magic opened remote campuses on the West Coast, accessible by mirror, to allow immigrant wizards a well-rounded education.
Indigenous North Americans, in general, do not having wizarding schools in the sense of Rowling and Ilvermorny. They keep their traditions and magical arts to themselves. Removing children from their community and lands is counterproductive. With few exceptions (most distinguished being the schools of the Anasazi and Iroquois Confederacies) indigenous wizards were taught at home, by their own people. Groups would meet at yearly gatherings to exchange news, trade, and information. One such notable indigenous wizarding rendezvous is the yearly event at the Straits of Mackinac, held for thousands of years where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet- hidden from view thanks to the Mackinac Bridge.
But yes, the Americas are too big, too varied, too mixed an experience to have one narrative, one school, and well… one writer.
(Sorry for getting carried away, I was having a storm of a headcanon session post-Ilvermorny. I’m mixed race indigenous, so I had some gripes…)
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