Founded in 1952, our school has quite an extensive history as was chronicled so nicely by local writer for Destination Jeddah magazine Bassma Al Toaimi:
“The American International School of Jeddah (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 Trans World Airlines (TWA) to manage the the development of the Saudi airline. The signing of the contract brought with it many American and European job opportunities and led to the arrival of many expatriates entering the city (of Jeddah). 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, the school noticed rapid growth, and therefore went from a villa to a mini school campus on the TWA compound (by the old Jeddah Airport #2 in 1959 and built a new facility in Al-Ruwais District in 1968. With Raytheon’s help a north campus began in 1976 and was appropriately named North Campus School (NCS).
