Grosse Pointe Academy Expanding Electives With $500,000 Donation

GROSSE POINTE FARMS, MI — The Grosse Pointe Academy is planning a major expansion of its electives program thanks for a sizeable donation from a family with ties to the school. The Cotton family of Grosse Pointe has donated $500,000 that will be used to roll out new innovations in time for the fall.

The donation is the largest gift to date designated for programming and will enable GPA to significantly upgrade its facilities as it moves into more experiential academic learning for its students.

“We are grateful to the Cotton family for their generous support of these program-driven facility improvements,” said Tommy Adams, GPA’s head of school. “Our whole community will benefit from these beautiful new spaces, especially our middle school students whose newly developed elective classes will make significant use of these facilities.”

Adams said that three designated learning spaces will be redesigned to promote collaboration, problem-solving and creative innovation to better facilitate the Middle School’s new Business Explorations, Tech Ed and Life Skills classes.

The addition of the school’s new electives program will provide students more choice and ownership in their learning and will expose them to new ways of thinking, according to GPA officials, who have broken down the renovation project into three separate areas of its lakefront campus:

• Progress is already underway on a new Center for Creative Studies. This classroom will include dry-erase walls, flat-screen monitors, mobile work tables, advanced technology, a recording studio, and two cooking stations.
• The main school building’s lower quad area will be transformed into a gathering and learning space for students and will include a new school store managed by students taking the Business Explorations class. The space will incorporate flexible seating options and flat-screen monitors for class use and display. Students of all grade levels will have access to this area for both learning and socializing.
• The Academy’s existing lower gym will now benefit from a comprehensive upgrade, including fresh paint, refinished flooring, flexible seating options, a dynamic projector and screen, improved lighting, new wall padding, and wall-covering graphics. These changes will allow the facility to host a wider variety of academic and non-academic activities.

“We firmly believe that these improvements will provide the space and tools necessary to open new doors of learning and possibility for both students and faculty members,” Adams said. “We are grateful to the Cotton family not only for their commitment to this exciting project but also to the entire educational program at The Grosse Pointe Academy.”

The Grosse Pointe Academy is a historic independent day school for children from age two-and-a-half through eighth grade.

Image via Grosse Pointe Academy

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