Business
60&
Years
Counting
American International School of Jeddah (AISJ) By Bassma Al Toaimi
AISJ has come a long way since it was founded in 1952. It all started in 1945, when King Abdul Aziz received a DC-3 aircraft as a gift from US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This gift led to the development of a civil aviation, the beginning of Saudi Arabian Airlines, and a signed contract with TransWorld Airlines (TWA) to manage the airline. The signing of the contract brought with it job opportunities and led to the arrival of many expatriates entering the city. The lack of a formal American curriculum school in Jeddah was an issue TWA employees faced because they needed schools for their children. Parents then formed the Parents Cooperative School (PCS, founded in 1952), in which they volunteered to teach students using a home school curriculum. When the expatriate community kept expanding with time, the school began to notice a rapid growth, and therefore built a new facility in 1968, and again in 1975. In 1976, the North Campus (NCS) was built in order to accommodate the rising number of students, by 1985 the school changed their name to Saudia-Saudi Arabian International School, and by the year 2000-2001 it had its first 12th grade graduation, and became the first international school in Jeddah that had a diploma program. The school changed
30 DESTINATION JEDDAH
its name to the American International School of Jeddah (AISJ) in 2004, after Saudia officially announced that they would no longer continue their sponsorship of the school due to their need to focus solely on the airline business. AISJ started in 1952 with just 40 students in a house, and now have over 1,100 students.