German in high school? I haven't heard of that. When I lived in a small village no one there really spoke English. The younger generation is pretty comfortable in English but anyone over 40 it's hit or miss.
My point was more than the locals stick to themselves and making any German friends is pretty difficult. The ones who like auslanders want to speak English, and the ones who don't like auslanders won't talk to you in any language so what is the point?
I do speak German when I go to the store or to the bank or whatever, but otherwise I don't ever use it. If you don't need it for work then you can probably get by without it unless you really want to integrate with the local culture a lot.