Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s wife, Dr Priscilla Chan, co-founded The Primary School in East Palo Alto, California, in 2016 to support children from low-income families. The tuition-free private school was built around a “whole child” approach, combining education with services such as dental care, wellness coaching and early-intervention screenings.
For more than a decade, the school received over $125 million from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). However, despite its extensive support services and community involvement, the school struggled to consistently meet academic benchmarks, raising questions about whether its model could be replicated in public and charter schools.
