A tuition-free school created by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan will shutter next year

New York (CNN) — In 2016, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, opened a tuition-free school for low-income families in California’s Bay Area, where Meta is headquartered.

Created under the couple’s philanthropy, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the Primary School aimed to combine healthcare and education for students “from birth through high school.” Chan, a former pediatrician, once described the organization’s education efforts as combining her two core passions.

But last week, the Primary School abruptly announced plans to shut down at the end of the 2025-26 school year. The school called the closure a “very difficult decision,” but offered little explanation, in a message to the hundreds of families that it serves across two campuses.

The closure comes amid bigger shifts by CZI and its namesake leaders, and as Big Tech broadly repositions itself in the era of President Donald Trump.

Parents were told that the school was shuttering because CZI was withdrawing its support, according to reports from the San Francisco Standard and the New York Times. A representative for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative told CNN that the school’s board of directors made the decision and pointed to its statement, but did not respond to an additional question about the group’s funding for the school. CZI plans to donate $50 million to the communities and families affected by the closure, the school said in its note this week.

Carson Cook, the Primary School’s senior manager of strategy and advancement, confirmed in an interview with CNN that the school began meeting with parents to inform them of the closure last Thursday and said those conversations are ongoing. But he declined to comment on the reasons behind the closure or the timing.

“At the Primary School, our model has always been one that carefully considers the needs of the whole family, and we want to do our absolute best to ensure that every child and their caregiver is supported,” Cook said. “And I think what we just want to say is that that hasn’t changed.”

Cook declined to comment on CZI. The philanthropy has recently undergone a series of significant changes. In February, the organization told employees it would cut internal and external diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

That followed a similar move a month earlier by Zuckerberg’s company Meta — one of several Trump-friendly changes the social media giant has made since the start of this year. Zuckerberg and Chan also attended Trump’s inauguration, where they were seated prominently among other Big Tech leaders.

Changing philanthropy focus

When Chan and Zuckerberg founded their philanthropy initiative in 2015 — at the same time that Zuckerberg pledged to give away 99% of his Facebook fortune — they did so with four goals: personalized learning, curing diseases, connecting people and community building.

The group said it was dedicated to improving health outcomes and invested in other education projects and immigration and criminal justice reform efforts. The Primary School was among the first of those investments.

In a column for CNN the year after the Primary School’s founding, Chan wrote that the organization wanted to address “toxic stress” among children that can be caused by abuse, neglect or poverty. She said the school’s early success proved that “children and adults can build resilience and thrive even in the face of trauma.”

The Primary School had become a model for other organizations — just last month, its medical director hosted a session at the SXSW conference about how integrating early childhood education and healthcare could help “the most vulnerable children and families.” More than 95% of the school’s students are “underrepresented minorities,” the Primary School reported in a 2023 tax filing.

The school’s unique approach involved pairing parents with “parent wellness coaches,” in an effort to support not just kids, but whole families. Cook said those coaches will work directly with parents to explore other schooling options for their children after the Primary School closes next year.

In the years after the school was founded, as Meta grew and gained influence, Zuckerberg and Chan continued to speak out about social issues.

In 2017, Zuckerberg pledged to visit and meet with people in every US state — even sparking rumors that he might make a bid to challenge Trump for the White House in 2020. Then in 2020, he and Chan expressed “disgust” and called for “unity” after Trump’s inflammatory remarks about nationwide protests against racial injustice.

But Zuckerberg has since made somewhat of a political about-face.

Last summer, Zuckerberg called Trump a “badass” after he survived an assassination attempt. The CEO later visited Mar-a-Lago as he angled for an “active role” in the president’s policy discussions, and he donated $1 million, through Meta, to Trump’s inauguration. Meta has also shelled out $25 million to settle the lawsuit Trump brought against the company for suspending his account after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol — $22 million of which will help fund a forthcoming Trump presidential library.

Announcing major policy updates ahead of Trump’s inauguration in January, Zuckerberg said the new administration represented “a real opportunity” for change at Meta.

Then in February, CZI announced it would focus on science and “wind down” its investment in “social advocacy.” That included cutting work on “immigration reform, as well as our racial equity grantmaking,” it said, along with its internal DEI programs

For families at the Primary School, CZI’s abrupt decision to shut its doors marks another way tech giants like Meta have reshaped their community — and not always for the better. For years, Bay Area residents have complained that as Silicon Valley grew, the influx of highly paid tech workers created a housing shortage and priced lower-income people out of the area.

One parent told the San Francisco Standard that the school had been a “gift to the community” in the wake of the housing crisis. “Now they’re gonna take this away too,” she said.

As for the Primary School’s staff, Cook said they are focused on the year they have left with students.

“We have an incredible staff and the fact that we have one more year with our families just invigorates and motivates us to provide them with the best year of school and programming that we possibly can,” he said. “Our team cares very deeply about our children, our families and about this community.”

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