Yanbian International Academy


Yanbian International Academy is a K-12 international school in Yanji, Yanbian, China. It is a part of the Yanbian University of Science and Technology.

History

It opened in 1997, as a quasi-homeschool organized by a group of mothers, giving lessons in English and Korean. This homeschooling group had 25 students. In the fall of 1998 Dr. James Wooton became the first headmaster of YIA. At that time the student body was down to 14 because some of the original students moved to the Yanbian Korean School when it opened. At that time the school had 10 part-time teachers and five full-time teachers. The student body rose to 30 by the fall of 2000, when Lee Nichols became the new headmaster. At the time there was one less full-time teacher, but the number of part-time teachers rose to 17. Scott Kim became the current headmaster in the fall of 2013. The student body is currently stabilized at 53 in November 2017. In November, 2017, mass number of South Korean students transferred to the Yanbian Korean School due to college issues. The student body dropped from 90 to 53 in several weeks.