In January 2014, students moved into the newly constructed Edna Maguire Elementary School at 80 Lomita Drive where Alto School was the original elementary school. In 1952, 7th and 8th graders had started attending Alto School. In 1956, the adjacent Edna Maguire School opened for grades 7 and 8, and Alto School became an elementary school. In 1972, Mill Valley Middle School for 7^th and 8^th graders opened on Sycamore Ave., and Alto Elementary moved into the vacated buildings as Alto Edna Maguire School.  In 1981, it closed owing to declining enrollment. In 1990, Edna Maguire Elementary School re-opened. In 2012 it closed and all buildings on the entire site were demolished.

Who was Edna Maguire?

S. Edna Maguire was an educator and historian who will long be remembered by Homestead and Tamalpais Park School pupils for her lively tales of the California gold country. 

Edna Maguire was born in 1888 in Lowell, California, a mining town in Nevada County where her father worked in the mines.

Her first teaching position in Marin was in Larkspur where she taught first grade. In September 1920, she came to the Mill Valley School District as a teacher-principal of Homestead School. Miss Maguire stayed at Homestead until 1927 when she took the same position at Tamalpais Park School, now called Park School. After 20 years as teacher-principal, she gave up the principalship and taught as a primary teacher.  

During her many years in the teaching profession, Edna Maguire was active with the California Teachers Association, being instrumental in getting the tenure law passed in California.

Edna Maguire retired from the Mill Valley School District in 1954 after 34 years. Her letter of retirement stated that it was about time for the third generation to arrive in her classroom and that would really date her. In May of that year the Mill Valley School Board of Trustees made the following resolution:

"In appreciation of her thirty-four years of outstanding service to the district and in recognition of her activity in organizations dedicated to highest professional and educational standards for the public school system, hereby be it resolved that that proposed upper grade school to be constructed at Alto be known as The Edna Maguire School."

In 1956 the Edna Maguire School opened and once again her name became familiar to the students of Mill Valley, as all seventh and eighth graders from the entire district attended "Edna Maguire".

Ms. Edna Maguire died at the age of 91 in 1980.