According to a recent report in the New York Times, according to a California government document and disclosure by city officials, facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan secretly run a private elementary school, BBS (formerly Bicken Ben) , in their Santa Clara County Palo Alto home, a long-term violation of the city’s regulations. The school caters for 14 students from kindergarten to fourth grade, including Mark Zuckerberg’s two daughters, 3 full-time teachers, 1 part-time teacher, 1 administrative staff and 1 other staff.
Mark Zuckerberg illegally opened a private school with 14 students. Photograph: Loren Elliott for the New York Times
As early as the outbreak, residents of the Crescent Park neighborhood in Palo Alto noticed, mark Zuckerberg’s house on Hamilton Avenue has a school-like routine — parents drop their children off every morning and pick them up in the afternoon, occasionally there will be large vehicles to pick up the children to go out activities. Residents suspected that the house was being used as a school, and subsequent events confirmed that suspicion.
Under current Palo Alto Regulations, special permission is required for any commercial use, including private schools, where an employee does not reside in the residence and generates traffic in excess of that of an ordinary residence. Mark Zuckerberg has not applied to the local government for permission to do so.
Jonathan Lait, director of Palo Alto’s planning and Development Bureau, said in an email response to residents’ complaints that the school had been identified as violating the rules and had requested its closure. Lahitte said in a march e-mail that operators had promised to stop running schools on June 30 or to consider switching to applying for day-care permits. California officials said the address was not linked to any daycare license as of Aug. 5, local time. Later, Palo Alto spokeswoman Meghan Horrigan Taylor confirmed that an investigation by the city department had found unauthorized private schools in the house, but it is no longer operating.
Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Mr. and Mrs. Mark Zuckerberg, said the children were part of a home-based learning group formed during the outbreak, in order to maintain the stability of learning has been the joint education. At the same time, McLear disputed the state document’s definition of the site as a “Private school.” He declined to provide specific information about the other 12 children, saying only that students would not have to pay tuition, some of the classes are taught by parents, and the Mark Zuckerberg were unaware that the premises were operating in violation of municipal regulations. But he also revealed that the Mark Zuckerberg family had plans to move it from Crescent Park to another location, whatever the outside world may define the educational activity.
Notably, the Mark Zuckerberg’s controversy comes at a sensitive time. In April, their school for low-income children in East Palo Alto just closed, mark Zuckerberg was blamed for causing anger and confusion among students and parents. The primary school will be closed in the summer as an early-stage project funded by the chen-Mark Zuckerberg Initiative Charitable Foundation, which 2026 the school. Some say it is disappointing that the Mark Zuckerberg family opened a school for their children in violation of the law when it closed one for low-income children.