It was founded in autumn of 1994 by Jeff Dufresne and Sandra Hall as a high school for newly arrived immigrants to the city of Saint Paul.

However, with the influx of new immigrants from the Wat Tham Krabok refugee camp in Thailand, the name was changed to reflect a more clear image and mission of the school.

During the summer of 2004, with the anticipation of new students arriving to Saint Paul, IA-LEAP was allowed to take over the entire building and, for unrelated reasons, the middle school component was closed.

But for these students who are pursuing their high school diploma, there is the additional problem of not understanding the background knowledge of a core subject that they would have learned had they been in an American educational system in their early years.

Such core subject areas could be, United States and World history, science, economics, mathematics, etc., which may have had a different focus, or even not taught at all in their home countries.