Wiesbaden MS (formerly JHS) History
Opened: 1968
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The original Wiesbaden Junior High School, which became Wiesbaden Middle School, was located in the Hainerberg Housing area next to Hainerberg Elementary School and across the street from Wiesbaden High School. The junior high/middle school was a two-story complex.
The school colors are blue and gold, and the mascot is the Wildcat.
For the 1974-75 school year the principal was John Reddington, and the deputy principal was Nick Speros. The next year the assistant principal was Hollis Cox. The junior high school had between 750 and 775 students in grades seven and eight. In the early seventies, students had a wide variety of extracurricular opportunities available. Club activities at the junior high school included Junior Red Cross, Afro-American club, stamp club, coin club, several crafts clubs, film club, trivia club, typing club, shorthand club, green thumb club, chess club, and a genealogy club. Other organizations were the student council, the yearbook, school newspaper, three levels of band, stage band, and a drama group. The junior high had a “School in the Snow” program where students attended ski school for a week and an Outdoor Education program. The “Yourself in Germany” group planned and participated in overnight trips to various German towns. The school also had a ninth-grade boys’ basketball team that competed against other DoDDS schools, a swim club that went to a local swimming pool each week and girls’ school based athletic group.
In the eighties, the six grade was added to the school and Wiesbaden Junior High was renamed Wiesbaden Middle School. In 1981-82 there were 800 students enrolled. For the 1987-88 school year, the staff consisted of thirty-eight full-time teachers, two half-time teachers, two administrators, two counselors, a reading improvement specialist, a special education teacher, a librarian, a nurse, a talented and gifted coordinator, two secretaries, and two clerks. There were 830 students in grades six through eight.
The curriculum at the middle school included all the normal classes including three foreign languages. A business enterprise program, WOWS which stood for Work Opportunity Within the School, was part of the middle school exploratory program.
With the drawdown of military personnel in Germany, the middle school enrollment dropped to 535 students in 1993 and by the 1994-95 school year there were only 410 students. The staff consisted of twenty-two teachers, a counselor, two special education teachers, a compensatory education teacher, media specialist, and a behavior management specialist shared with elementary school.
The new Wiesbaden Middle school was designed using the DoDEA 21st Century Facility specifications and was the first school in Europe to be completed using this concept. The three class wings are two stories each and have six neighborhoods. Each neighborhood is divided into a variety of learning areas such as learning studios/classrooms, laboratories, and group rooms with associated infrastructure rooms. These rooms and their centers can be spatially linked based on the type of class and its requirements.
The core, or heart, of the school is the multipurpose room, designed as a two-story hall with galleries on the sides. It is located in the physical center of the building. The multipurpose room also functions both as a cafeteria for lunch and as a common area at the beginning of each day for socializing and circulating. The school also had additional rooms for general use and an information center which is on the upper level. Mechanical rooms are located in the basement.
Currently, Wiesbaden Middle School serves the families of the US Army Garrison Wiesbaden, which is home to USAEUR HQ. The school embraces the middle school concepts, with students attending in teams, which creates a sense of belonging. Generally, students attend required classes in their own grade level neighborhood, and leave the neighborhood to attend elective classes such as band and art.
For the 2022-23 school year, Lauren Tobias was the principal, and Isabel Christian was the assistant principal. There were 450 students in grades six through eight.
Information from DoDDS School Information Guides, the school website, and internet resources