The History of The John Cooper School

Published: 2/12/2026

Founding Head Shares Legacy of Cooper's History

From Curiosity to Wisdom

The Legacy of Marina Ballantyne: The founding Head of School returns to the place she and the first Board of Trustees built, sharing memories, lessons, and a vision that continues to shape Cooper today.

“I felt like I had this calling to start a school in The Woodlands. So, for ten years I would tell people, I’m going to start a school there." - Dr. Marina Ballantyne.

On a cool spring morning in 2024, Marina Ballantyne walked back onto the campus she had once imagined into existence. It had been thirty years since she stepped away as the founding Head of School, yet the spirit of the place still felt like home. Her smile grew wide as she paused before a wall of photographs, seeing the faces of children who had grown into alumni, teachers who had stayed, and buildings that had risen long after her time but somehow still felt connected to that first blueprint.

In the Ramirez Lecture Hall, she listened as Head of School Dr. Stephen Popp shared the vision for the future. The words on the page made her catch her breath: A School for the Future. They were her words, written decades ago in the earliest brochures when Cooper existed only as an idea. Hearing them now, still alive, stirred something deep within her.

Later, in the quiet of her own home, she walked through boxes of carefully saved documents, hand-drawn master plans, early drafts of mottos, photos from those frantic first days when teachers and parents worked side by side to ready the School in time. She called the School’s marketing team and invited them over, handing them a lifetime of archives. “These belong back at Cooper,” she said, smiling joyfully.

That afternoon became the heart of a powerful, on-camera interview in which Marina reflected on the courage, persistence, and community that built the School. It is with pride and gratitude that we now share this video documentary and the story you are about to read, a story of vision, persistence, and triumph, of a dream that became a legacy.

Before There Were Dragons, There Was a Dream

Years before there was a groundbreaking, before there were buildings, before there were Dragons, there was a dream. Marina had spent four years working in Admissions at Rice University, touring more than four hundred of the nation’s finest schools – Phillips Exeter Academy, John Burroughs School, University of Chicago Lab School, San Francisco Day School - and seeing what made them work. She pursued a doctorate at Stanford University and filled her office with files from the best schools she had studied, taking notes on what could someday shape her own.

When John Cooper, former head of The Kinkaid School, invited her to join a steering committee to explore a new independent school in The Woodlands, Marina felt her calling take shape. George P. Mitchell (founder of The Woodlands), a man of great vision and her uncle, had earlier granted the School acreage to build.

George Mitchell and John Cooper gathered some of the brightest minds in The Woodlands to imagine something bold - an independent college preparatory school at the heart of the community’s master plan. When Marina joined their effort, she immediately set to work. She drafted the founding documents, wrote the very first brochures, and articulated a vision that promised parents more than a school. It promised a place where children’s natural curiosity would be protected, nurtured, and guided toward wisdom that would serve them for life.

A School Built in a Year

When Marina accepted the role of founding head of school at just 34 years old, there was no campus yet, only trees, architectural drawings, and hope. Marina took the initiative to hire an additional architect to redraw the front façade to give it more of an academic appearance, adding the arches and banding in the brick, which became a consistent theme throughout the campus. Construction began in December 1987 with a hard deadline: open the doors by September 6, 1988.

The first year was not easy. By May 1988, only sixty-two students were enrolled, far short of the budgeted goal. Then came a front-page story in the Houston Chronicle that changed everything. The phones rang off the hook. Families came from Conroe, Kingwood, and beyond. By opening day, enrollment had nearly tripled.

The contractor handed the keys to the School on Sunday, September 4, and the final weekend before opening was a scene of collective determination. Faculty, parents, trustees, even Marina’s own parents carried boxes, arranged desks, hung artwork, and made the space come alive. “By the first bell,” she later recalled, “you would have thought the School had been here for ten years.”

On that first day, 162 students arrived, wide-eyed, stepping into a school that did not merely exist but felt ready to welcome them. By the end of the year, the enrollment was 175.

Creating a Culture and Community that Lasts

Marina spent as much time hiring as she did building. She insisted on seeing every faculty member teach before offering a contract. She invited parents to help choose color schemes, furniture, and interior design, creating shared ownership in the School’s identity.

Marina created the School’s Motto, From Curiosity to Wisdom. After years of interviewing students at Rice, she realized how often their innate curiosity had been dulled by traditional schooling. Cooper would be different. It would keep curiosity alive, then guide students toward not just knowledge, but wisdom that gives back to the world.

Even small details were chosen with care. When the first vote for a school mascot yielded “Cardinals,” Marina gathered a smaller group of students and floated another option, inspired by the dragon serpent in the lake she passed near The Woodlands’ South Shore Park. The students submitted drawings and naming ideas. The Dragons were born.

Parents and faculty did more than pay tuition or teach lessons; they built a culture. Such traditions as the International Festival, art and sculpture show, Seniors and Kindergarteners as buddies, and the School’s first gala all grew from the energy of those early years. Students contributed their ideas, such as the Habitat Project, as well. As Marina often said, “Traditions are the glue that hold a community together.”

A Presidential Moment

As the School added grades year by year, Marina looked ahead to the first graduating class. She wanted the moment to feel historic. After a personal meeting and a letter (which she still calls “the best I ever wrote”), President George H. W. Bush agreed to deliver the first baccalaureate address in 1994. Two thousand guests gathered outdoors to watch Cooper’s first seniors, 26 members of the Class of 1994, cross the stage under the words From Curiosity to Wisdom.

The Legacy She Left

When Marina stepped down in 1995, the School had grown from an idea to a living institution with momentum, a clear mission, and a thriving community. In 2019 she returned for the 30th anniversary celebration and saw how far the vision had grown. The science and fine arts buildings – The Rock Math & Science Center and Glenn Performing Arts Center - had become masterpieces. The faculty and students had carried the culture forward. The administration still lived in its original space, a quiet symbol that at Cooper, learning, not administration, remained the center of campus life.

At the School’s 30th anniversary celebration, Mike Maher, then Head of School, shared that when asked to name the one word that described Cooper, the senior class said “community.” Marina later said that was what she had hoped to create - a school with a profound sense of community with space for all to share their ideas and dreams. She later reflected, “If I do nothing else in my entire life, this would have been enough.”

A Bridge to the Future

Marina declined the offer to have the Lower School named for her, suggesting instead that it honor her grandmother, Katina Mitchell, who had championed education as the path out of poverty. Marina’s name now graces the Ballantyne Bridge, a fitting tribute for a woman whose life’s work was to create pathways for children to cross From Curiosity to Wisdom.

Watch the Story

The archives Marina entrusted to Cooper have been digitized and paired with her emotional on-camera interview. In the accompanying video documentary, you will see Marina revisit the classrooms, remember the faces, and speak of the courage and faith it took to launch a school with no guarantees except the belief that it could be done.

This is more than history. It is an invitation to all who love The John Cooper School to carry its story forward.

Watch her story and read more on Page 28: https://online.fliphtml5.com/ywakp/iiwx/#p=29

YouTube Documentary: https://youtu.be/wR9XnarVTTs?si=JoZ5Xw-EyZgTdI3Z

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