Hahn ES History
Opened: 1953
Closed: 1995
Hahn American Elementary School was located on Hahn Air Base, which was situated at the crest of a mountain range and was fifty miles due west of Wiesbaden, Germany. The air base was located in an area of small villages and two-lane highways.
The school was called the Hahn Family school until the 1956-57 school year. The school principal for the 1954-55 school year was Richard C. York, and there were 456 pupils at the dependent school, with grades K–8.
Hahn Elementary School was located in the base housing area about a half mile from the main base and shopping center. By the 1981-82 school year, the school consisted of two large two-story buildings. The older building had classrooms for 700 students, 25 teachers, specialists, and the administration. The “new” building, completed in March 1976, housed 400 students, sixteen teachers, and specialists. The art room, the media center, speech, reading improvement, and learning development rooms were in this building. The staff for the fall of 1981 consisted of four kindergarten teachers; thirty-seven elementary teachers; fourteen specialists in media, counseling, physical education, art, reading improvement, learning development, speech, and music; two administrators; six paraprofessionals; a nurse; and five clerical personnel. There were 1,070 students enrolled in K–6.
Nick Suida was the principal during the early eighties. For the 1983-84 school year, he submitted an article to a DoDDS publication about the school literary magazine, Scratchins. The magazine was published four times a year. There were over sixty submissions which were edited and compiled by a parent. Chuck Yahres, a sixth-grade teacher, ran off the magazine at the school on a ditto machine and prepared the magazine for distribution.
The enrollment had increased to 1,350 students for the 1987-88 school year. A six-classroom prefab building was used to accommodate approximately 150 students. There were five kindergarten teachers, forty-four elementary classroom teachers, sixteen specialists, three administrators, seven paraprofessionals, and seven clerks on the staff. The next year the school enrollment increased to 1,420 students. There were now six kindergarten teachers and forty-six elementary classroom teachers.
Hahn Air Base closed in 1993, but the elementary school continued and supported students located in the towns of Morbach and Traben-Trarbach. These towns were a short distance from the former air base. There were seventy-five students in grades K–8. For the 1994-95 school year, the enrollment had increased by one. There were five teachers at the school and one teacher/principal.
The elementary school closed in 1995.
Information from DoD School Information Guides, DoDDS publications and military websites