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CAIS also offers international travel programs for current students, high school-aged alumni, faculty, and staff.[4] The school organizes trips to Taipei, Beijing, and Yunnan in the fifth, seventh, and eighth grades, respectively.[5]
In September 1981, the school, then known as the Chinese American Bilingual School, began as a Mandarin-English school. It had an enrollment of four kindergarten students and was operating in the basement of the French American International School. Shirley Lee, a faculty member of the Chinese department at San Francisco State University joined as founding teacher and principal, and remained head of school until her retirement in 2000.
CAIS has received national recognition for its program. In 1987 the US Department of Education designated CAIS the "national prototype for Chinese language education in elementary schools."[citation needed] In 2004, CAIS was awarded the Goldman Sachs Prize for Excellence in International Education.[10]
In 2021, CAIS secured the former property of Mercy High School for $40 million, which will become the new location of the campus.[11]