In the late 1960s, a group of white parents raised funds[4] to create a segregation academy in response to the federally mandated racial integration of Leon County Schools.

[9] Construction on the first campus buildings was completed in a year and a half for $150,000 ($1,314,258 today[10]),[6] allowing the school to open on September 9, 1968, with eight teachers and 138 students.

[12] Thompson told the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper that the school had a non-discriminatory admissions policy but that just one Black person had ever applied and that the prospective student was not accepted.

[15] By 1974, the school's 394 students[16] included at least one Black person: 14-year-old Deryk Jones, who told the Tallahassee Democrat that he had been warmly received.

[23] In 2019, the school opened the Beck Family Research Center, which includes classrooms made of recycled shipping containers.

The center includes an aquarium, science labs, administrative offices, a common room, a coffee shop, and an art gallery.