Inside a century-old Carnegie library on Cleveland's southeast side, a brand-new kind of high school is getting ready to ring its first bell. Forward Girls Leadership Academy, a tuition-free, independent all-girls high school, opens its doors to its founding freshman class next Monday, August 17, with roughly 42 girls enrolled so far in what the school is calling its Class of 2030.
The school is the vision of Dr. Luciana Gilmore, a former Cleveland Metropolitan School District administrator who previously served as principal of CMSD's John Adams High School. As reported by WKYC, Gilmore said she wanted viewers to see how the school project had progressed since the station first introduced her in December 2025. According to The Vindicator, Gilmore spent more than a decade developing the concept, drawing on her experience running one of Cleveland's public high schools.
Gilmore told WKYC that the school vision now has a home. That home is the former Miles Park branch of the Cleveland Public Library at 9250 Miles Park Avenue, a building constructed in 1906 with funding from Andrew Carnegie that served the neighborhood for more than 80 years before closing in 1987, according to the Case Western Reserve University Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. The renovated space now features an open-concept design anchored by a large circular community area that the school intends to function like a college student union.
A Long-Missing Option in Cleveland Education
Forward Girls Leadership Academy fills a specific gap in the city's public school system. CMSD already operates two all-girls magnet schools for Pre-K through eighth grade, Mary McLeod Bethune Girls' Leadership Academy and Mary B. Martin Girls' Leadership Academy, but the district has offered no public single-sex option once those students reach high school. Girls graduating from those middle schools who wanted to continue in an all-girls environment previously had to look toward private institutions.
Those private options come at a steep cost. Single-sex high schools in the Greater Cleveland area, including Laurel School, Hathaway Brown, and Beaumont School, charge annual tuition reaching up to $42,000, per the Sisters of Economic Action. Forward Girls Leadership Academy, by contrast, is tuition-free and funded based on enrollment, structured as an independent public charter school authorized in Ohio through the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation rather than as a traditional district or charter school.
Small Classes, Big Ambitions
The school is intentionally starting small. Its founding freshman class still has 25 available seats, and administrators are deliberately limiting class size to emulate the feel of a small all-girls private school. WKYC has reported that the academy plans to add a new group of ninth graders every year, eventually expanding to serve between 75 and 100 students per grade and reaching a total capacity of 300 to 400 students across grades nine through twelve.
Academically, the school is organized around two pathways, Leadership in STEM and Innovation and Leadership in Global Humanities, integrated with what it calls an Exploratory Leadership project-based learning model, according to the school's own materials. Notably, Forward Girls Leadership Academy chose not to field interscholastic sports teams in its inaugural year, instead directing its budget toward academics, leadership development, and social-emotional learning, per the same WKYC report from December.
A New Administrative Team and a Big-League Partner
Ahead of the August opening, the academy expanded its leadership team, appointing Cleveland native Blake Gilliam as assistant principal and Kasey Morgan as director of operations, according to a school announcement. The founding class will also get an unusual bit of ownership over the school's identity: students will choose their own mascot.
The academy has also picked up a high-profile civic partner. In July, Cleveland's newly announced WNBA expansion franchise selected Forward Girls Leadership Academy as its Official Education Partner, according to the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation, which sponsors the school's charter. The partnership is intended to bring leadership development and mentorship opportunities to students as the school works to give girls an educational experience Gilmore has said they haven't previously had access to in Cleveland.
