About LIIP
Where is LIIP?
LIIP History
An Unnamed Idea
In August of 2019, Jinju's only international English education option, Saint Paul Jinju Campus (SPJC), closed a few days before the start of year. The planning, preparations, and curriculum for 2019-2020 were ready to go, but the students and teachers were without a school. Mr. Cook, then Vice Principal of SPJC, met with COLAT and discussed the possibility of reopening with SPJC's curriculum under a different brand. There was still need for a high quality, private, international education option Jinju and Western Gyeongnam.
The first iteration of COLAT's offering very small: a handful of students in grades 2 and 3, just two teachers, Mr. Cook and Ms. Berbenzana. Mr. Park was the Director. The nascent program operated on the 4th floor of the Towon Building inside the Rise Jinju hagwon by filling the classrooms that were empty during the daytime. Within the first six months of operation, more former SPJC teachers joined: Ms. Chloe, Ms. Su, Mr. Ginn and Mr. Millar. The still unnamed program attracted enough students to run grades 1 through 4. In March of 2020, new students joined for after-school program classes in a new short form program which taught only the core courses from the morning program.
A Place to Be and A Name to Call It
In August 2020, the unnamed program became Leap Innovation International Program or LIIP for short. LIIP moved into its own, dedicated space on the 3rd floor of the Towon Building. With a name and a place, the program also gained a clear brand strategy and a definitive logo. LIIP formalized its growing "mini LIIP" program offering as LIIP Afternoon Program (AS). LIIP AS expanded its course offerings to extend LIIP's high quality curriculum to students who attend public schools. Some of these LIIP AS students were also former SPJC students.
By August 2021, LIIP had established itself locally. Its summer camp offering, Summer STEAM, filled within weeks of being opened. For three weeks in the summer, 48 students participated in project-based activities, coding, Chinese, team-based engineering challenges, and creative writing projects. Some of these students, stayed on with LIIP AD or LIIP AS when regular classes resumed.
