@HG@beige.party I'm in my early fifties. I can confidently say that I would not get this usage of “elders” from context, and I think if a first-grader explained it to me my first instinct would be that they must have misunderstood. To my mind an elder is an old person, and I don't even qualify myself. It's very unlikely that it would refer to a second-grader. I don't even trust that Mormons are called elders if they're under forty and not wearing a badge. I hope that the opinions of multiple parents would clue me in that some special jargon was in play, but I'd still want to confirm with the teacher. However… that's the problem with early dementia: the pattern becomes apparent even when each isolated incident can still be explained away. You know your mother, and if you're concerned you're probably right.