Cottonwood Classical Prep dedicates 'Dr. G Learning Commons'

Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School celebrated on Monday the completion of several new facilities projects and honored a beloved recently retired teacher who had been with the institution since its founding 16 years ago.

Officials from Cottonwood Classical and members of its foundation came together to see “The Dr. G Learning Commons,” the charter school’s first library, named after Denise P. Gianopoulos.

“It’s such a huge honor,” Gianopoulos, who retired July 1, said in an interview. She had served as president of Cottonwood Classical’s governing council and is one of the original eight instructors at the International Baccalaureate school serving nearly 800 students in grades 6-8.

The learning commons was part of the final phase of the school’s facilities master plan, which included installing outdoor student recreation structures and portable classrooms, as well as adding a gym, a theater, a technology laboratory and renovated classrooms. The projects encompass 5,000 square feet of renovations and cost over $850,000, which the charter school’s foundation helped raise.

A few students have seen the renovations, but most of them will see them when they return from Thanksgiving break on Monday, according to the foundation’s president, Curtis Holloway.

“Some of them will remember some of the space as dark and drab,” Holloway said. “They will love it. I think it’s very inviting and open.”

John Binnert, executive director of the school, said it feels good to complete the master plan.

“We put a lot of years into the work, and frankly, we probably don’t take enough time to celebrate it,” Binnert said. “I’m very impatient when it comes to making things better for students and for this school.”

The learning commons is Cottonwood Classical’s first bona fide library. Beforehand, Gianopoulos and her students gathered up an informal collection of books, which at one point were placed on rolling shelves in the cafeteria. With the addition of a professionally certified librarian, Binnert’s wife, Francine, in 2020, library operations have become much more formalized, he said.

In prepared remarks during the library’s dedication on Monday, Francine Binnert said Cottonwood Classical added a library to its strategic plan in 2019, but the years since have not come without “lots of temporary aches and pains.” The book collection has moved five times over the last four years.

“Though it’s sometimes felt like a Herculean, or for those of us who know Denise, an ‘Odyssean’ task, we’ve come to understand that library services extend far beyond walls and stacks,” Francine Binnert said, referencing the retired teacher’s teaching of the ancient Greek poem “The Odyssey” to her students.

Gianopoulos’ brothers and sisters were major donors toward the project and secured the naming rights to the library, which was initially going to be called “The Gianopoulos Athenaeum” using the Greek term for “library,” before it became “The Dr. G Learning Commons.” Gianopoulos noted that “learning commons” is how people refer to libraries now.

“It’s no longer where you go to find out knowledge. It’s where you go to build knowledge, create knowledge ... and engage,” Gianopoulos said.

The technology lab is an addition that includes four rows of chairs and tables, a large flat-screen television and standing power outlets.

While Cottonwood Classical renovated just three classrooms in the final phase of the master plan, John Binnert admitted most of the charter school’s other classrooms need upgrades.

The renovated classrooms are bigger than previous ones, which for Cottonwood Classical means five classrooms were eliminated.

“Those five classrooms were not as useful as these three,” Binnert said.

To Binnert, the classrooms are “remarkably ordinary” — a subtle but important quality given that, years ago, he taught in what he describes as a large closet at Cottonwood Classical.

“Having ordinary rooms is a huge positive differential,” he said.

Binnert, who said he is always looking for improvements to the charter school, said the Cottonwood Classical Preparatory Foundation hopes to start work on a new master plan with the school in the spring.