{"id":44205,"date":"2026-04-26T04:39:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T04:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/44205\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T04:39:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T04:39:26","slug":"zuckerberg-backed-bay-area-school-to-lay-off-147-as-it-shuts-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/44205\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuckerberg-backed Bay Area school to lay off 147 as it shuts down"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tuition-free school<\/a> founded by Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> and Dr. Priscilla Chan<\/a> in the East Bay will lay off nearly 150 employees as it prepares to shut down this summer, according to a state filing.<\/p>\n

The Primary School in San Leandro submitted a notice to California’s employment department on April 15, stating that 147 employees will be laid off effective June 12 as part of a permanent closure. The campus is located at 750 Fargo Ave. in San Leandro.<\/p>\n

The filing offers the clearest picture yet of the scale of job losses tied to the school’s planned shutdown, which was announced in 2025<\/a> but has drawn renewed attention as the end of the academic year approaches.<\/p>\n

Founded in 2016, the Primary School was designed as a tuition-free model serving low-income families, combining education with health care and social services.<\/p>\n

Backed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative<\/a>, it operates campuses in East Palo Alto and San Leandro and serves about 550 students.<\/p>\n

The closure is expected to displace hundreds of children and has already begun to strain nearby public school systems.<\/p>\n

In San Mateo County, the Ravenswood City School District is preparing for a surge of new students from the East Palo Alto campus. District officials have warned that the shift could create “an immediate crisis” without additional space, according to ballot materials supporting a proposed $70 million facilities bond.<\/p>\n

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has said it will commit $50 million to support families affected by the closures in East Palo Alto, Ravenswood and Menlo Park’s Belle Haven neighborhood.<\/p>\n

The layoffs come amid a broader pullback from some of the couple’s education-focused efforts. Earlier this year, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative cut about 70 jobs in Redwood City as it narrowed its focus to artificial intelligence-driven biomedical research.<\/p>\n

School leaders have said they will provide transition support to families as operations wind down at the end of the school year.<\/p>\n

This article originally published at Zuckerberg-backed Bay Area school to lay off 147 as it shuts down<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tuition-free school founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan in the East Bay will lay off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154],"tags":[24689,10757,25255,618,25253,7387,24690,28089,28090],"class_list":{"0":"post-44205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mark-zuckerberg","8":"tag-chan-zuckerberg-initiative","9":"tag-east-bay","10":"tag-east-palo-alto","11":"tag-mark-zuckerberg","12":"tag-primary-school","13":"tag-priscilla-chan","14":"tag-ravenswood-city-school-district","15":"tag-san-leandro","16":"tag-tuition-free-school"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116469167752940257","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}