New school year kicks off in Pacific
with class changes, renovated schools
By Jan Wesner Childs and Greg Tyler, Stars and Stripes 
Summer is officially over.
Some 25,000 students from across the Pacific return to classes Monday
morning, marking the start of another school year at the 39 Department of Defense
Dependents Schools on bases in Japan, Okinawa and South Korea. Guam students started Aug.
10.
More than 2,000 teachers and staff members throughout the Pacific
spent last week decorating and cleaning classrooms, attending training and orientation
sessions, and preparing for classes to begin.
“I had a great summer, but it’s time to feel productive
again,” said Andy Mako, a fifth-grade teacher at Seoul American Elementary School on
South Korea’s Yongsan Garrison.
Many students will see new programs and new teachers, and some
schools have been refurbished over the summer.
“We’ve been hard at work all during the summer,” said
Marie Cullen, the assistant principal at Pusan American School on the southeastern Korea
coast.
The school is undergoing a renovation that includes new paint, a new
air-conditioning system in the library, new cabinets and furniture in some classrooms, new
windows, new carpeting and $31,000 in new playground equipment.
Cullen said the fresh look improves the image of the school, and
that’s good for the 201 students enrolled as of last week.
Franklin Fisher / Stars and Stripes
Elizabeth Ward, 8, shares tender moment with mom, Sung Hui Ward, before lining up with her
third-grade class outside Taegu American School in Taegu, South Korea. |
“I think it just makes them feel good and safe and clean and
organized,” Cullen said. “It makes the teachers feel that way, too.”
Also at Pusan, students in grades 7 through 12 will be put into block
scheduling. That means that instead of the traditional seven classes per day, they will be
in four longer classes per day, with different subjects on alternating days. Each session
will last twice as long.
At Sasebo Naval Base in southern Japan, principals of the two schools
are excited about new programs and facilities.
“This year we are adding advanced placement courses on the high
school level in English, U.S. history and statistics,” said Linda Connelly, principal
of Ernest J. King School.
She said the school has eight new teachers this year, and it is
expected to have just under 600 students from prekindergarten through 12th grade.
The high school also has added electives such as drama, journalism
and a computer music course.
At Sasebo’s Jack N. Darby Elementary School, in the Hario
Housing Village, Principal Mary Simmons is looking forward to using a new three-story
building that should open Oct. 1.
“There are some rooms in there that were specifically built for
early-childhood education, so we will definitely have those types of programs like Sure
Start and kindergarten in there,” Simmons said during a reception for teachers
Thursday evening.
Jennifer Svan / Stars and Stripes
Bernie Figueroa, 11, and Alex Horn, 10, fifth-graders at Yokota East Elementary School at
Yokota Air Base Japan, listen to teacher Jennifer Miller's instructions. |
Simmons said the school has averaged about 375 pupils the last few
years.
Schools at Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station in southwestern Japan
have two new school buses and a long-haul touring bus for the new year. The new buses can
seat 44 students, as opposed to the 18 carried by the old versions.
There are some new faces at Iwakuni’s Matthew C. Perry High
School. Principal Alice Berard recently arrived in Iwakuni after leaving her job as an
assistant principal in Ankara, Turkey.
Berard started teaching during the 1986-1987 school year, and began
teaching in DODDS in 1992.
“DODDS [schools] are great because they are small. Being smaller
helps the student-teacher relationships grow and mature,” said Berard. “They are
also great because the students are more disciplined and gain stronger relationships
between themselves.”
The high school’s enrollment so far this year is 250. M.C. Perry
Elementary School is ready for about 575 pupils this year.
Jan Wesner Childs / Stars and Stripes
Alex Gransback, a first-grader at Seoul American Elementary on Yongsan Garrison in South
Korea, pulls a bag of supplies out of his backpack on the first day of school Monday. |
The eight DODDS schools in South Korea have a total of 75 new
teachers, according to Korea District Superintendent Bruce Jeter. All the once-open
teaching slots are filled, Jeter said, an improvement over recent years when the school
year has started with a teacher shortage.
There are roughly 3,300 DODDS students in South Korea. The smallest
school is C.T. Joy, near the Chinhae Peninsula’s southern tip, with close to 30
students. The largest is Seoul American Elementary School at Yongsan Garrison, with about
1,100 students.
Dave Menig, business manager for the Korea district, said enrollment
is about the same as last year.
Final numbers for all DODDS schools will be calculated Sept. 30.
Those numbers are used to determine next year’s budget and staffing.
Jason Carter / Stars and Stripes
Frank Siratakos, a science teacher at Zama American High School, delivers books to a
fellow teacher's classroom in preparation for the first day of school for most DODDS
students in the Pacific. |
While elementary and middle school teachers look for ways to keep
their students’ attention on the first day of school, high school staff and
counselors already are looking to the weeks and months ahead.
Debby Young, a counselor at Osan American High School at Osan Air
Base south of Seoul, was busy getting students’ schedules ready. But once that’s
done, her work will turn to making sure students are taking the scholastic assessment
tests, sending in college applications, and ensuring they have the credits they need to
either transfer to a public school in the States or go on to college.
Parents, meanwhile, stocked up on school supplies and counted down
the hours until that first school bell of the year.
Jyunghee Kanik eagerly helped her two kids, a fifth-grader and a
sixth-grader, pick out school supplies at the Yongsan post exchange. As son Steven and
daughter Angella proclaimed that they didn’t care about going back to school, Mom was
more than ready.
“Mmm-hmm, that was a long summer,” Kanik said.
RELATED STORY: School system helps Pacific
students cope with stresses of military life
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