Its roots go back as far as 1875 when Pauline Jürgens II founded her own private school.

Today's building at Lina 2 street was finished in 1925 and was known as the "Tartu City 7th Primary School".

In 1967 the new part of the school was built and with new specialised music and history classes.

On 1 September 1995, the name of the school was changed to the "Tartu Karlova Gymnasium".

This Estonian school-related article is a stub.