In 2016, Mark Zuckerberg’s wife Priscilla Chan founded a school that was designed to be different; 10 years later and after $125 million funding, Board voted to close it

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s wife Dr. Priscilla Chan, co-founded The Primary School in East Palo Alto, California in 2016. The school was designed to serve the low-income families. The tuition-free private school aimed to support the “whole child” through wraparound services such as dental checkups, wellness coaching, and early-intervention screenings. For more than ten years the school received more than $125 million from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). However, despite the strong support services and community engagement, academic performance often fell short of state norms, complicating efforts to replicate the model in public and charter schools. A report by Wall Street Journal revealed that despite all these efforts the school shut its doors this past June after a decade of operation.