The middle school will merge with the high school starting with the 2026-27 school year at Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni, Japan. (Janiqua Robinson/Stars and Stripes)
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan — Department of Defense Education Activity officials are moving ahead with a plan that will alter school leadership, staffing and facilities at this base south of Hiroshima.
Iwakuni Middle School and Matthew C. Perry High School will merge to become M.C. Perry Middle/High School at the start of the 2026-27 school year, according to the department news release. Both schools will occupy the existing high school campus.
“Combining the middle and high schools will broaden academic opportunities by allowing middle school students to begin advanced coursework earlier and giving older students more efficient access to both enrichment and targeted support,” DODEA spokeswoman Miranda Ferguson said by email Friday. “The unified campus will also expand extracurricular options for all students in grades 6–12.”
The middle school building will be returned to MCAS Iwakuni by the end of June, according to a DODEA news release announcing the merger. It did not specify how the building will be used.
“While we cannot comment specifically on its potential future use, repurposing the Iwakuni Middle School will provide MCAS Iwakuni much-needed flexibility in the form of more office space for either installation or tenant command use,” air station spokesman Maj. Mason Englehart said by email Thursday.
The grades six-through-12 model is already in place at E. J. King Middle High School at Sasebo Naval Base and at Zama Middle High School at Camp Zama, the headquarters of U.S. Army Japan.
DODEA-Pacific will “host Q&A sessions and offer voluntary work group opportunities to collaborate with stakeholders on shaping the future of M.C. Perry Middle/High School,” according to the release.
DODEA “has kept the Iwakuni community well-informed throughout the process,” Ferguson said. “The response from installation leadership and the community has been overwhelmingly positive.”
The merger will mean a change from two principals to one, Ferguson added.
“The number of school principals is based on enrollment. Based on that projection, there will be one principal at M.C. Perry Middle High School following the reconfiguration,” she wrote.
The number of remaining faculty and staff will also adjust “based on the merger,” Ferguson said.
“The majority of impacted educators were placed in Iwakuni schools, with the remaining placed at other schools within the Pacific East District,” she wrote.
DODEA operates 161 schools around the world for more than 65,000 children of U.S. service members and DOD civilians, according to its website.
