Bremerhaven ES History
Opened: 1948
Closed: 1993
Bremerhaven American Elementary School was also known as the Speckenbuttel Elementary School or the Speck School.
In the early sixties, the fifth and sixth grades were located at the high school downtown, and later these grades were located at a staging area across from Radio City.
Earl Lamb was the principal in the early 1970s. Mr. Lamb stated in an article for DoDDS that the community provided fantastic support for the schools. Twenty parents were involved in ongoing programs, and every teacher who requested a parent aide had one.
Throughout the years, the school focused on the host nation program. Many years the school hosted a Thanksgiving feast with visiting German students. The school also had an active Outdoor Education Program sponsored by the school nurse and a first-grade teacher.
In the early eighties through the nineties, the elementary school building consisted of twenty classrooms, eight of which were in the recently developed new annex building. For the 1981-82 school year, there was a staff of thirty for the 490 students in grades K–6.
For the 1989-90 school year, kindergarten classes were housed in an area ten minutes from the main building. The elementary now had 540 students in kindergarten through sixth grade.
The last principal for the school was Bill Hanley. The school closed in June 1993.