Two Cleveland schools received a chunk of a $100 million federal grant designed for Ohio charter schools, state officials announced on Friday. 

The two schools, Menlo Park Academy and FORWARD Girls Leadership Academy, were among 13 schools statewide that will share nearly $20 million. That money is the first round of funding to be handed out in a new program that plans to distribute around $50 million to new charter schools throughout Ohio in addition to $47.5 million to improve existing charter schools. 

FORWARD Girls Leadership Academy is one of the new schools starting up with help from the grant. It opened its doors a few weeks ago in the Union-Miles Park neighborhood. Menlo Park, an established school on Cleveland’s West Side, plans to upgrade its building with the $1.3 million grant. The release didn’t list the grant amount for each school, and FORWARD couldn’t be reached Friday. 

The U.S. Department of Education first announced that Ohio would receive the federal money in September 2025, when Secretary of Education Linda McMahon visited Columbus. Two more rounds of the grant will be distributed over the next three years. 

Both Cleveland schools have a unique model 

FORWARD Girls leadership academy is an all girls high school. Founded by a longtime Cleveland public school principal, Luciana Gilmore, the school has a special focus on developing girls into leaders. The school opened in August with around 50 ninth graders but plans to grow to grades 9 through 12. 

“We’re going to have some girls that are gonna contribute to the world because they’re going to be scientists, or somebody’s going to find the next cure for something, right?” she said in an interview with Signal Cleveland before the school opened.“But also, we’re going to have girls who have that voice to advocate and be that impact and change in the world too.” 

Aside from the federal funding, Gilmore also got an investment for FORWARD from FutureReady Cleveland, a new nonprofit that’s been working to bring charter schools to the city. 

Menlo Park Academy on Cleveland’s West Side caters to children who are identified as gifted, Deborah Zeffren, the school’s superintendent, told Signal Cleveland. The school, which enrolls around 300 students, plans to use the $1.3 million in grant money, which is more than it thought it was getting, to build a makerspace — a kind of STEM classroom outfitted with technology like 3D printers and robotics supplies. 

“It was really exciting,” Zeffren said of the announcement. “These funds will really help us educate our children the way they need to be educated.”

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K-12 Education Reporter (she/her)
I seek to cover the ways local schools are or aren’t serving Cleveland students and their families. I’m originally from Chicago and am eager to learn — and break down — the complexities of the K-12 education system in Cleveland, using the questions and information needs of community members as my guides along the way.