Arleigh Smith, a fifth grader at Smith Elementary School in Baumholder, Germany, speaks at a ceremony Wednesday, May 29, 2024, to commemorate the start of construction of a new elementary school for up to 700 students at the U.S. Army base in Baumholder. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
BAUMHOLDER, Germany — Against a backdrop of dirt mounds in an open field at Wetzel Kaserne, a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday signified the start of an estimated three-year process to replace the oldest Defense Department school in Europe.
Smith Elementary School, which opened in 1952 with 198 students in grades kindergarten to eight, will give way to a $64.7 million successor named Baumholder Elementary School at this rural U.S. Army installation northwest of Kaiserslautern.
Summer 2027 is the current time frame for completion of the new elementary school, according to the Department of Defense Education Activity-Europe.
With an area of 135,200 square feet, the school will be able to accommodate about 700 students in grades pre-K to 5.
Members of the Baumholder Middle High School Junior ROTC color guard post colors at the start of a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Baumholder Elementary School in Germany on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
Similar to other modern schools that have been built for DODEA Europe in recent years, Baumholder elementary will have classrooms with movable walls, giving teachers flexible space for learning.
It also will have a common room for school events and a gymnasium, while outdoors there will be a sports field, a playground and a school garden, said Jurgen Mehler, of LBB Niederlassung Idar-Oberstein, the German company working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on school design and construction.
And perhaps most important, Mehler added, speaking directly to the group of Smith Elementary School pupils in attendance, “everywhere is Wi-Fi.”
In addition to the school, the base is preparing for a new lodging facility, as well as new junior enlisted townhomes being built just down the hill from the elementary site, Col. Reid Furman, U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz commander, said at the ceremony.
Col. Reid Furman, U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz commander, speaks Wednesday, May 29, 2024, at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new Defense Department elementary school in Baumholder, Germany. The shovels dignitaries used to break ground for the school can be seen in the background. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
The projects signify a bright future for a post that had been on the chopping block several times as part of post-Cold War reductions from the early 2000s to 2012.
The groundbreaking heralds the coming of more educational opportunities for students, Furman said.
But it’s “also a victory for the community here in Baumholder, for all those who live here, who have watched units leave Baumholder and then watched them come back,” he said, adding that “we are going to continue to invest.”
About $500 million in construction projects are underway at Baumholder for relocation of troops assigned to Special Operations Command Europe in Stuttgart.
The soldiers are expected to arrive in 2026, adding about 1,000 people to the garrison, Furman said earlier this year.
Smith Elementary School students take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for a new elementary school Wednesday, May 29, 2024, at the U.S. Army base in Baumholder, Germany. Construction of the new school is expected to be done by the summer of 2027. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
Assorted officials have fun tossing dirt up into the air at the groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday, May 29, 2024, for a new elementary school at Baumholder, a U.S. Army post in southwestern Germany. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
Smith Elementary School, the oldest Defense Department school in Europe, will be replaced in an estimated three years by a new elementary school at the U.S. Army base in Baumholder, Germany. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
A rendering of the new Baumholder Elementary School, which is slated to be constructed and ready to accommodate up to 700 students by the start of the 2027-28 school year. (DODEA Europe)
Before the groundbreaking, there was some reflection on the storied history of Smith elementary. It was first called Baumholder American Elementary School, but in 1960 it was renamed after Capt. Harold D. Smith, a soldier who received the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism in World War II.
That same year, Wetzel Elementary School opened, splitting the original school into two campuses. Named after Medal of Honor recipient Walter C. Wetzel, a soldier who was killed in Germany in World War II, the school closed in 2014 amid troop reductions at Baumholder.
Wetzel will be torn down during the next fiscal year, a DODEA Europe spokeswoman said, and the future Baumholder Middle High School will be built at that location.
