The Department of Defense Education Activity and project partners celebrated the newly built Sembach Elementary School with a ribbon cutting ceremony Friday February 27, 2026, on Sembach Kaserne in Germany. (Alfredo Barraza/U.S. Army)

Students and their teachers along with school and community leaders are celebrating the newest Department of Defense Education Activity school in Europe and across the agency.

Sembach Elementary School opened to students last month, a feat that was marked with balloons, confetti and a ribbon cutting on Friday at the school on Sembach Kaserne, a U.S. Army post northeast of Kaiserslautern.

The facility serves about 240 students in grades pre-kindergarten through fifth grade alongside about 45 staff members, according to DODEA.

The $57 million project took just under four years to complete. The new building replaced the old Sembach school, which opened in 1974 and served more than 1,000 students in kindergarten through ninth grade.

The campus in 2020 transitioned to its current configuration as part of DODEA’s long-term plan to modernize its infrastructure overseas, according to the agency.

To that end, the new school sports a modern educational design, DODEA officials said, that includes technology integrated throughout classrooms, dedicated spaces for art, music and physical education, and enhanced safety and security systems, among other features.