Jeopardy! Kids Week

Jeopardy! Kids Week (sometimes called Back to School Week) was a one-week event that featured children between ages 10-12. It was held every season from 1999 until 2014, except for season 30.

Season	Airdate	Finale
16	September 6, 1999	September 10, 1999
17-A	October 2, 2000	October 6, 2000
17-B	December 25, 2000	December 29, 2000
18-A	September 24, 2001	September 28, 2001
18-B	December 24, 2001	December 28, 2001
19-A	September 16, 2002	September 20, 2002
19-B	January 6, 2003	January 10, 2003
20-A	September 22, 2003	September 26, 2003
20-B	May 3, 2004	May 7, 2004
21	October 18, 2004	October 22, 2004
22	October 10, 2005	October 14, 2005
23	October 2, 2006	October 6, 2006
24	October 8, 2007	October 12, 2007
25*	September 15, 2008	September 19, 2008
25	July 13, 2009	July 17, 2009
26	July 5, 2010	July 9, 2010
27	July 4, 2011	July 8, 2011
28	July 30, 2012	August 3, 2012
29	July 29, 2013	August 2, 2013
31	December 1, 2014	December 5, 2014

The asterisk (*) indicates the Kids Week Reunion.

Trivia

• The winning contestant keeps the amount they have scored like regular play, except they are not returning champions.
  • There is also a “house minimum” of $15,000 per winner, and for some years, whoever won the highest total that week would have an extra $5,000 added to their total.
• There was no title card used for Seasons 17 and 19 of Holiday Kids Week and Seasons 16-18 of Back to School Week.
• Kids Week occurred twice from Seasons 17-20 and 25.
• The asterisk indicates that there was a Kids Week reunion for the show's 25th season.
• There was no Kids Week during Season 30, and the event was cancelled altogether after Season 31 due to Gabby Fusco's mother being upset with Alex Trebek telling her she was in the red at the end of Double Jeopardy!, which resulted in Gabby herself running backstage in tears to her mother about the bad news about being eliminated from Final Jeopardy!. Neither returned for the closing credits as is the case with any kid who is eliminated prior to Final Jeopardy!.
• Kids Week in Season 29 also sparked some controversy - the third match, to be more specific. In it, Thomas Hurley III wrote down for his Final Jeopardy! response “What is the Emanciptation Proclamation?” Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was the correct response, Thomas’ response was declined as his adding of a “t” made the answer different, and as such, invalid. After this, Jeopardy! clarified that even though spelling did not matter, pronunciation did; as such, they were unable to accept his response. Even so, he was already down $27,000 going into Final Jeopardy, and would’ve been down double that even had his response been accepted.
• The Kids Week origin happens to have been inspired by Jep!, which was in the process of ending its run, which it officially did by 2000.
• The one-day record for Kids Week is $66,600, set by Skyler Hornback on July 31, 2013, after wagering $30,000 of his already hefty $36,600 and getting the Final Jeopardy! question right. Skyler took great interest in the Civil War, and it paid off when he was asked a question about the Emancipation Proclamation. This was, of course, the same game that caused the controversy regarding Thomas Hurley III's response.
  • Skyler’s record was #5 in the one-day total leaderboards at the time, below Roger Craig ($77,000), Ken Jennings ($75,000), and Andy Richter and Jerome Vered tied at $68,000, though Jerome’s total is accounting for the fact that clue dollar values were half of what they are now when he set the record.
    • After James Holzhauer’s streak, Skyler’s total was bumped down to #27, and bumped down one more spot after Matt Amodio won $74,000 in his seventh game almost exactly eight years later on July 29, 2021. (Matt ended up surpassing Skyler three more times - winning $67,800 in his nineteenth game, $70,400 in his thirtieth, and $83,000 in his thirty-fourth. Because of this, Skyler’s record now stands at #31.)

Gallery

Season 18

Season 19

Season 20 as Back to School Week

Season 20 as Kids Week recorded in Washington D.C.

Season 21

Season 22

Season 23

Seasons 24-26

Season 25 as Kids Reunion Week

Season 27

Season 28

Seasons 29 and 31