Not a “had to do” but “were allowed to do”…
Smoke 
Not me (HS class of 1990), but my slightly older (HS class of 1985) H. There was a smoking area in the courtyard off the cafeteria where kids were allowed to light up at lunchtime.
NY HS class of '88 here and the smoking area of my HS officially “closed” my senior year but, people still smoked and there was no enforcement of the no smoking rules. My D thought that was nuts too!
Yep! It closed my sophomore year 1991! 
I lived in Canada so maybe we were late, but I remember that all the smokers moved into the street and the town tried to get the school to open The Pit back up because of traffic 
Dodgeball at gym and recess. Some kids could throw pretty hard so it could get brutal.
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I don’t remember smoking in my school in NOVA in the 80s, but H does here. He is 4 years older than me.
But, smoking was allowed in my governmental workplace until 2002(!!!) after both my kids were born. I’d have citizens coming up to me blowing smoke directly in my face while visibly in my last trimesters. With older S, we had one guy in the office who smoked like a chimney, so I’d work with brown paper towels over my face when he was here. And if it got too bad, I’d sit outside for awhile. Fortunately, he wasn’t the most punctual employee.
OMG the rope climb. I’d just jump upwards, fall down, and call it a day.
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My science teacher did the same with a deer that had been hit by a car. He dragged the deer to class, through the school hallways on a sled.
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I was very fast, so I loved dodge ball!
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Yes to the square dancing and “smokers lounge” for students.
In Junior High we had to take Home Ec, wood shop, and drafting, boys and girls.
We also had to take swimming which I hated (think 1980s and all the girls used a can of hairspray on their hair, we looks like drowned rats after swim class). The worst part was we had to WEAR THE SCHOOLS SWIMSUITS! And they were sorted by size, so people could easily see what size you wore depending on which color you were wearing.
I think it was worse for the boys though as their swimsuits were speedos, not board shorts.
Correct school uniform at my prep school (different meaning in the UK it’s for ages 7-13)
was to carry a handkerchief a yard of cord and a pen knife. I did get stabbed by another student once in the hand - not with a knife but with a pencil - I still have a tattoo like dot on my hand 50+ years later.
Even for the UK my schooling was odd.
It was a very progressive Edwardian school that would have been ‘modern’ in 1905 - not so much in the 70’s
I still to this day don’t know why we carried cord, however the knife got used all the time.
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At my Secondary school (high school in American) the head of PE (sports) used to watch us shower and would often send a kid back to soap again. He had a nick name that I could not write here but every teacher knew their nick name as did all the staff… and nobody ever said anything. I have more stories from my English boarding school system experience than I could ever afford to tell a therapist
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All the PE class trauma. First being picked - or not - by peers for teams. As if the humiliation of always being picked last and the groans of the team stuck with us would encourage our athletic skills. Then 8th grade bombardment, boys against girls, in which the boys used their newly discovered testosterone to pelt the girls with the kickball, often leaving bruises, and once a broken finger. And of course the Presidential fitness test, completed in front of judgy peers, and we all knew who finished first and who finished last.
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The fact that the Presidential Physical Fitness test included the ‘sit and reach’…not great for one that had long legs and a short torso.
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I haven’t read all the responses…but MANY I remember of these (square dancing (Michigan), cleaning erasers, tornado drills)
I’ll add this - not a have to but a “had” - there was a smoking area for kids to smoke - a designated area! 
I’ll add one piece gym uniforms for the girls - like shorts bloomers - baby blue - HATED.
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Our high school chem teacher - who was AMAZING and the reason I went into science as a career - had a fun reward for the class if we did well on tests/quizzes. She’d use a chemical reaction to inflate a balloon with hydrogen gas. Then she’d tape it to a cinder block wall, and using a lit candle duct taped (?) to a yardstick, she’d pop the balloon and voila! A tiny hydrogen bomb! Once, the balloon was a little too big and the whole wing of the school shook! It was pretty great. (Thanks, Mrs. Thomas!)
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Ski bus. For all of my elementary school winters the ski bus drove us out to one of the nearby ski areas where we had group lessons and sack lunches. The kids that didn’t go skiing had “scrambled eggs days” on Fridays at school where they did fun and crazy things like learning how to juggle clubs, or tracing their body on butcher paper and laying out maps of the circulatory system with licorice ropes and candy.
In high school the senior prank days were legendary. Gluing the furniture in the art studio to the ceiling. Releasing crickets into the library. Packing the head’s office completely to the ceiling with straw. One year they disassembled and then reassembled a car in the upstairs hallway of the main building, another year they did the same thing but on the roof.
From experience in schools in rural south:
INTENSE dodgeball at PE
Rope climb to top of gym ceiling protected by 2" blue mat on the floor
Football coaches leading prayer before, during, and after games and practices
Football (or any other sport ) counted a class - 6th period
Pledge of Allegiance
Student bus drivers
Paddling
Smoking lounge with Vice Principal who would bum smokes from students
Detention (administered by coach or smoker VP above and usually was mowing a field or picking up trash - if you were lucky you got to drive the school pickup truck)
Off campus lunch
Interesting clubs/activities: FCA, FFA, 4H, Jr. Miss
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Square dancing in schools has an interesting history (we had it in Maine in the 80s, too.):
You Had to Square Dance in Elementary School because Henry Ford Hated Jazz
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Along with his wife and their square dance instructor Benjamin Lovett, he campaigned to bring square dancing to the physical education classes of students across the country
DH and I held our wedding reception at Lovett Hall in Ford’s private ballroom where the spring-loaded floor was specially designed to “give” for square dancing. Even though I grew up in the Dearborn area, I don’t remember learning to square dance in or out of school. There was no square dancing at our wedding.
Possibly my favorite quote from this thread…
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