Atlanta International School Acquires 25-Acre Sandy Springs Campus

Atlanta International School has acquired a former boarding school tucked away in Sandy Springs, gaining access to a 25-acre site whose facilities could play a role in advancing its goal of fostering international student and faculty growth and exchanges.

Before it closed in May 2023, the former Brandon Hall School campus was home to around 150 students, a mix of boarding and day attendees with a strong contingent of international students from more than 20 countries. The campus hosted a variety of summer leadership programs that attracted participants from around the world.

AIS believes the campus will complement its long-held Buckhead facility, in part expanding its academic offerings but also, over the longer term, providing a residential component that may be crucial to fostering extended exchange programs.

The process took about six months to complete, AIS leaders said in thanking Brandon Hall’s outgoing administration for their support. After entering bankruptcy, Brandon Hall negotiated to be able to sell its property to pay off creditors.

An International Baccalaureate school with about half expat students and half locals, the nearly 40-year-old AIS has long sought additional space beyond its 17 acres in Buckhead, Head of School Kevin Glass said in a news release.

“This is a hugely significant step in the story of Atlanta International School, opening up previously unimaginable opportunities to our whole community – now and for generations to come,” Mr. Glass said.

While hosting more students, from “anywhere in the world and from the local Atlanta and Sandy Springs community,” is mentioned as an eventual goal, leaders stressed that the campus offers many immediate opportunities for student and faculty enrichment.

Located on a wooded area along the Chattahoochee River, the former Brandon Hall campus includes athletic fields, tennis courts, student dormitories, meeting spaces, laboratories and faculty residences, along with an iconic stone building at the center of the property previously used as administrative offices.

Atlanta International School is considering using the campus to develop an innovation hub and an expanded AISx program, a hybrid pathway for students for whom an all-day education proves challenging due to athletic pursuits or other obligations. The school recently launched a partnership with Atlanta United, providing a curriculum for the soccer club’s developing players and placing a learning center on the team’s training campus.

Most immediately, the new Sandy Springs campus is being used for expanded summer camp offerings in the coming months. Find out more here

“At AIS we embrace the future, embrace difference, embrace change and help our young people not only to thrive in an ever-evolving future but to help shape it — for the better,” said Scott Britton, chair of the Atlanta International School Board of Trustees, in a release. “Through this expansion of our physical space and facilities, we will now be able to fulfill our mission on an even greater scale. The Board of Trustees, together with a new campus task force, will ensure that the potential of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is fully met.”

The Development Authority of Fulton County in September approved a nearly $12 million revenue bond that the school will use to pay back a previous bond and to make improvements on the Sandy Springs campus. The tax-exempt bond does not commit any funds from the county, which is a vehicle for the issuance of debt that obligates Atlanta International School for its payments.

Founded in 1984, AIS serves 1,330 K-12 students with an IB curriculum, an innovation program and dual-immersion programs in Chinese, French, German and Spanish. The student body represents 90 nationalities with more than 60 languages spoken, some of which are covered under the school’s Heritage Language program designed to provide supplementary instruction in students’ native languages.

Learn more at www.aischool.org.