Liberty IS History
Opened: 1997
OPEN
Liberty Intermediate School (LIS) is part of the RAF Lakenheath/Mildenhall community, located in Suffolk County in East Anglia. The community is situated in an area of forests and agriculture. Liberty Intermediate School supports fourth and fifth grade students from the greater RAF Lakenheath community. The school is located on RAF Lakenheath, which is 6 kilometers (approx. 3.5 miles) from RAF Mildenhall. LIS is the only DoDEA school that just has grades four and five.
The school mascot is Blizzard the Siberian Tiger. The school motto is “We Laugh, We Learn, We Grow, We ROAR with Success!” The school song is:
We unite as one at Liberty
Growing into who we’ll be
Working hard brings dignity
We laugh we learn we grow
Yeah we know our school is out of sight
Wearing colors black and white
Brilliant minds are shining bright
We laugh we learn we grow
We laugh
We learn
We ROAR!!!
Tigers ROAR!
Patricia Munday served as the principal from 1997 to 2001. Mr. Hunter was principal from 2001 to 2006. Then Della Betta was principal followed by John Fletcher from 2007 to 2008. Dr. Marguerite Green was the principal beginning in the 2009-10 school year through 2014-15.
When the school opened there were approximately 285 students in the fourth and fifth grades. The enrollment remained consistent until the 2003-04 school year when there were about 450 students in the two grades. (The growth in enrollment was anticipated and construction to enlarge the school was begun during the 2001-02 school year.) Enrollment dropped to about 330 by the 2005-06 school year and to 325 by the 2009-10 school year.
For the 2021-22 school year, the principal was Ms. Connie Turner who had been the principal since the 2016-2017 school year, and the school enrollment was 220 students. Ms. Colleen English began her time as principal for the 2023-24 school year, and the enrollment was 230 students.
Students were offered a variety of extracurricular activities including clubs for art, board games, computer, and homework assistance. The school had intramural sports; SWEP, the schoolwide enrichment program; and a chorus. Students were involved in the D.A.R.E program. The school had an Artist in Residence program and welcomed its first student teachers during the 2003-04 school year. To celebrate the millennium, students learned about changes in the last 100 years from Mrs. Denise McGuire, a local British citizen. Media clubs included a webpage club, yearbook club, and newspaper club. The school newspaper was the Liberty News Flash. New clubs in the 2000s included a sign language club, outdoor adventure club, German club, and French club. In the mid-2000s, the school had a Spanish Immersion class at each grade level. School study trips included visits to Cambridge, the Ely Cathedral, Duxford Imperial War Museum, Bury, and the pantomime in Mildenhall.
A program unique to Liberty was the Kindness Patrol. In this program, student mentors were on the playground each day and they reported acts of kindness so these students could be recognized.
Students participated in district and regional programs such as the Spelling and Geography Bees, JASON LEARNABRATION, Reading Counts, and Math Olympiads. The school nurtured partnerships with the military community and has several events like Purple Up to celebrate the Month of the Military Child.
In 2013, the school added an annual STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Day to its yearly celebrations. In 2018, a chapter of the National Elementary Honor Society was chartered.
For the 2020-21 school year, LIS started a reading project, One School - One Book, which encouraged and promoted reading. The grant/request written by Mrs. Stanley (5th grade) was supported by the LIS Parent Teacher Organization and the Federal Education Association (FEA). Each Tiger, including the Tigers in DoDEA Virtual School (DVS), received a free copy of the book Wishtree. The program was a Community Outreach effort starting with families and extending to the Military Community to include Command Leaders and the program Leaders are Readers.
Information from the school website and school yearbooks