It took a mother of 10 children to convince the school district to build the tiny Louisa M. (sometimes spelled Mae or May) Alcott school in 1926. Mrs. Amos P. Miller was so disturbed by the busy traffic that her children faced trying to get to and from school in the Edgewater neighborhood (youngsters went home for lunch in those days) that she convinced the Cleveland school district to build another school in a safer area.
The Plain Dealer described the new school on Baltic Road, named after the famous author of “Little Women,” as a “beautiful little red brick school of four classrooms, office and dispensary.”
That tiny footprint bedeviled the school for years. By 1970, the school had run out of room. It held kindergarten through second grade classes in four rooms, while third graders were taught in a rented church. Students in fourth, fifth and sixth grade went to two other schools, Landon and Fruitland, which both closed long ago. The school district decided to replace the outdated building with a new school some time in the 1970s.
But the new school didn’t last. Alcott became a vocational opportunity center for special education students in 1981. It reopened as a K-5th grade school in 1997.
The school was once noted for its excellent teaching. In 2010, Thomas B. Fordham Institute called the economically disadvantaged school one of its top performing schools for teaching reading and math. The following year, then-CMSD CEO Eric Gordon hailed the school for its excellent state ratings.
In December of 2025, over the protests of students and teachers who said the small school culture created a family environment, the school board voted to close the school, citing the small structure and student body.
