SCHOOL’S OUT

Mark Zuckerberg Caught Running Illegal School by Neighbors

Neighbors campaigned to have the illegal school Zuckerberg was running out of his compound shut down.

A new WIRED report reveals that neighbors of Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, formerly Facebook, were forced mount a campaign after Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan began running a school out of the family compound in Crescent Park, Palo Alto. Documents obtained by WIRED reveal that the school began operating around 2021 and may have had as many as 30 enrolled students, despite not receiving the necessary permits until 2022. Neighbors, who also complained about noisy construction work, the intrusive presence of private security and the vast number of employees causing traffic and occupying street parking spots, eventually became exasperated with the lack of action on behalf of the city, suspecting that the Zuckerbergs were being given preferential treatment. One email sent to Palo Alto’s Planning and Development Service Department read, “We find it quite remarkable that you are working so hard to meet the needs of a single billionaire family while keeping the rest of the neighborhood in the dark.” The school, a Montessori school known as the ‘Bicken Ben School,‘ was eventually ordered to shut down by June 30. A spokesperson for the Zuckerberg family told Wired that the school had not closed, but had simply relocated. Palo Alto spokesperson Meghan Horrigan-Taylor told Wired that claims the Zuckerbergs received “special treatment” are not accurate. The city “enforces zoning, building, and life safety rules consistently, without regard to who owns a property,” Horrigan-Taylor added.