The station first signed on the air on April 24, 1967[2] from the basement of the Spokane Public Schools' Adams Elementary. A series of school levy failures in the early 1970s forced the station to secure alternate funding through other sources, and in 1972, Friends of Seven (now known as Friends of KSPS) was founded to provide financial support to KSPS.

On July 26, 2012, the board of Spokane Public Schools voted unanimously to spin off KSPS to the Friends of KSPS. A day later, the Friends of KSPS board also voted unanimously to move forward with taking full control of the station. Under current projections, the transition from an educational license to a community license will take until Fall 2013. School board employees working for KSPS will become employees of the non-profit organization. Gary Stokes, the executive director of the Friends of KSPS, says that he hopes to "keep things as business-as-usual as possible. That includes keeping the employees a part of our station." Friends of KSPS has become the primary financial supporter for the station in recent years, and Stokes believed that his organization was in a position to take over the station outright. In addition, the station plans on staying at its location at Ferris High School in the short term; the school board has no plans to sell the building that the station is located in.