The Primary School, a tuition-free private institution co-founded by Priscilla Chan, the wife of Mark Zuckerberg, is set to close after almost ten years in operation. The school, which operates two locations in the San Francisco area, announced on its website that it will cease operations following the 2025-2026 academic year. In response to the closure, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the philanthropic organization founded by the couple, will invest $50 million over the coming years into the communities the nonprofit serves, including East Palo Alto, Belle Haven, and the East Bay.
The statement on the school’s website, posted late Thursday, indicated that the decision to close was a difficult one and emphasized a commitment to facilitating a thoughtful and supportive transition for students and their families in the upcoming year. Carson Cook, a spokesperson for The Primary School, did not provide any comments beyond the official statement.
Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician, established the school in 2016 with a mission to implement an “integrated health and education model” for families and children from birth through high school. The nonprofit introduced its first middle school cohort in 2023. Recent tax documentation reveals that over 95% of students at the East Palo Alto location are from under-represented minority groups, and the school possessed assets exceeding $30 million as of the end of June 2023.
The closure of The Primary School is part of a broader trend among initiatives launched by billionaires. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Larry Ellison have also founded educational institutions in recent years. The Musk Foundation has committed $237 million to a technology-centric primary and secondary school in Austin, with plans to expand into a university. This school, Ad Astra, collaborates with the company that assisted Ellison in establishing his Hala Kahiki Montessori school in Lanai, Hawaii. Meanwhile, Bezos developed a network of Montessori-inspired preschools for underprivileged communities.
The closure coincides with significant changes in Zuckerberg’s business endeavors. The founder of Meta Platforms Inc. has made strategic moves to align more closely with the Trump administration, including appointing Trump allies like Dana White and Dina Powell McCormick to his board. Furthermore, Zuckerberg appointed a Republican strategist as chief of global affairs, disbanded Meta’s U.S. fact-checking initiative, and dismantled hate-speech regulations as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at both Meta and CZI.
Throughout its operations, The Primary School has focused on diversity efforts, conducting an audit following the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in June 2020 and establishing a DEI task force later that year.
