School Histories

Iwakuni MS History

Opened: 2017
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Iwakuni Middle School is a Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) school located on Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Iwakuni, located in Iwakuni, Japan. The school staff has been between thirty-one and forty-six and the enrollment reached a high of 280 students for the 2019-20 school year and had 220 students for the 2025-26 school year.

Iwakuni Middle School serves students in grades six through eight and opened with an enrollment of approximately 270 students. The school opened for the 2017-18 school year on Wednesday, August 30th, 2017, and held an official ribbon cutting on Monday, October 2nd, 2017. The first principal was Mr. George Man, and he led the school for three years. When he left, the yearbook was dedicated to him.

Iwakuni Middle, along with its sister schools, M.C. Perry Primary School, Iwakuni Intermediate School, and M.C. Perry High School serve children of military and civilian parents who have been stationed at MCAS Iwakuni.

Many extracurricular clubs are offered to students. Interest areas include art, audio technology, running, scrapbooking, cooking, creative writing, K-Pop, sewing, anime, and Lego robotics. Additionally, students create and deliver the Morning Broadcast and participate in sports such as basketball and volleyball.  The school has a diverse cultural program where students participate in exchanges with local Japanese schools; learn to play traditional Japanese instruments like the shakuhachi, koto, and taiko drums; and participate in time-honored tea ceremonies. The Ninja Nation Store is a school store that is run by middle school students.

Students participate in regional, district, and national programs such as Math Counts, National Junior Honor Society, Red Ribbon Week, Geography Bee, and the Month of the Military Child.

Several school programs are designed to address the needs of middle school students. These include Peer Mentors, Anchored4Life, and S2S (Student to Student). The Iwakuni Blue Ninja Transition Team are a group of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students that volunteer their time to help welcome transitioning students to the school. They provide a welcome bag with all kinds of goodies including a water bottle, stress ball, journal, and much more. They take students on a tour of the building, walking them through their class schedule; get them used to the school’s locker system; and introduce them to other peers. During lunch and recess the students are invited to eat with the transition team members so that they can instantly feel part of the Blue Ninja Family. Lastly, the Transition team works on quotes for the week and random acts of kindness to build a healthy culture at the school. For the 2021-22 school year a new tradition to honor students that are leaving IWMS was begun. On a student’s last day at Iwakuni, a special farewell noodle arch to honor leaving students is created.

An annual event that takes place on the last day of school before the students are released to winter break is the Jingle Bell Jog. It involves a jog that students go on that is around a mile long. There are also drinks, food, and raffles for the kids and adults to try to win prizes such as bikes and video games.

During the 2022-23 school year, students completed a two-year project to create a school logo mural from recycled materials.

Iwakuni has an active arts program that includes band, choir, and drama. The school is proud of being the only school on base that has an art gallery to display student work. The gallery was opened during the 2022-23 school year. 

School Administrators

Information from school yearbooks and website