Matthew C. Perry PS (formerly ES) History
Opened: 1987
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In September 1955, the US Army established the American Dependents School, and the school operated under this name until 1957 when the US Navy established a Naval Air Station and officially renamed the school Matthew C. Perry School. In 1958, the air station reverted to the US Marine Corps. The school retained its name under the new command and comprised a correspondence high school with one teacher and four elementary school teachers. In 1977, the school was separated into a high school and an elementary school, with separate faculty and principals for each school.
For the 1981-82 school year, the elementary school was situated in a set of older buildings spread over a four-and-a-half-acre campus. In addition to the classrooms, there was a library, multi-purpose room, and audio-visual center. There were eleven educators, nine classroom teachers, and two specialists for the 270 students in grades kindergarten through six.
A newly designed facility was opened for the 1983-84 school year. The elementary facility was completed in the spring of 1985.
In 1984, the two schools were once again combined into a single unit school under the supervision of a principal and assistant principal. By 1987, the schools were separated once again.
Matthew C. Perry Elementary opened its doors to serve both children and families in 1955 with only four classroom teachers. In 2017, the facility became a primary school, serving the youngest students in the community. The school now had twenty-four classrooms and employed sixty-three faculty and staff.
The elementary school is located on the southern end of the island of Honshu, the main island of Japan. The nearby city is Iwakuni.
For the 1987-88 school year, the school was in the new facility, but some old buildings were still in use. Construction on the new high school portion of the building began in the spring of 1985. At this time there were twenty classroom teachers for 550 pupils.
By the mid-nineties, the elementary school had grades kindergarten through six, and there were just over 400 students.
Matthew C. Perry, the school’s namesake, embodies the characteristics the school wants to instill in its students--those of problem solvers. Matthew Calbraith Perry (April 10, 1794 – March 4, 1858) was a Commodore of the US Navy and commanded a number of ships. He played a leading role in the opening of Japan to the West in 1854. He was very concerned with the education of naval officers and helped develop a system that helped establish the curriculum at the United States Naval Academy. With the advent of the steam engine, he became a leading advocate of modernizing the US Navy and came to be considered The Father of the Steam Navy. The USS Commodore Perry was named in honor Commodore Matthew C. Perry and his brother Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry.
The school was honored as a National Blue Ribbon School in 2014. The principal at that time was Shirley Landrum.
Mary Mullins became the principal for the 2020-21 school year, followed by Vivian Bosworth.
The school mascot is the Samurai, and the school colors are burgundy and gold. The school is now a primary school with about 340 students in preschool through second grade.
Information from internet sites, school yearbooks, DoDDS School Information Guides and DoDDS Pacific Region, 1946-1986