BY EMILY MIBACH
Daily Post Staff Writer
The East Palo Alto City Council on Tuesday (June 18) will vote on whether to give final approval for the school proposed by Mark Zuckerberg’s wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan.
Once the Primary School’s facilities at 1200 Weeks St. are completed, there will be some 511 students in grades kindergarten to eighth grade. Another 150 students will be part of an infant-toddler-parent program. The school — the brainchild of Chan, who is a pediatrician — will combine health care for the children along with education.
The school has told the city in the past that about 90% of its students will live in East Palo Alto. This comes at a time when the Ravenswood School District is facing steadily decreasing enrollment, with families fleeing to other schools, causing the district to lose state funding, which is based on enrollment numbers.
The district lost about 400 students between October 2016 and October 2017, according to a chart attached to a report for the project.
The district is slated to lose another 583 students between October 2018 and October 2021. This will take the district’s enrollment from 2,386 to 1,803, according to the report.
Ravenswood gets money based on how many children are at school every day. The district has steadily had to cut millions from its budget the past two years.
But despite concerns about Ravenswood, the city’s planning commission on June 10 unanimously recommended that the City Council give the Primary School the go-ahead.
If approved, construction on the site will likely begin in September or October.
In the first stage, crews will remove dirt on the property and replace it because the property is contaminated, according to the environmental impact report.
The school will be paying about $1.5 million in fees and traffic improvements around the school, notably paying for a sidewalk to be built on the northern side of Runnymede Street.
The Primary School has been open since 2016, operating out of trailers across the street from the Ravenswood Family Health Center at 1885 Bay Road. The school bought 3.5 acres on Weeks Street a few years ago, but has not been able to build there because of a development moratorium due to a water shortage.
The moratorium ended after the city bought Mountain View’s rights to 1 million gallons of water a day and was given 500,000 gallons daily in water rights from Palo Alto. That’s opened the door to development in East Palo Alto again.
The Primary School, along with the Sobrato Organization and the developer of an office project at 2020 Bay Road, paid a combined $1.53 million to help the city buy some of Mountain View’s water supply for East Palo Alto.
I can’t understand why anybody would be against this school. It sounds exactly what our town needs. I think Dr Chan and her husband are extremely generous and we should roll out the red carpet for them.
This headline is ridiculously sexist – she has a name and identity separate from her husband. Her name as you obviously know from the photo is Dr. Priscilla Chan and the headline should mention that
No one knows who she is so they refer to her as Zuckerberg’s wife. He is way more known and popular than she is. Plus the author is a female. Not everything is sexist.
She wouldn’t be able to do this if it weren’t for her husband’s money. I’m sure her intentions are good and that she’s a wonderful doctor, but none of that matters if you don’t have the money.
Spoiler alert – women can be sexist too
Allison, does everything need to be politicized now? So the paper can’t say a spade is a spade anymore because it violates some rule of political correctness, and they have to deal with people like you? Everybody has to walk on eggshells now and carefully avoid saying anything or doing anything that will bring on the wrath of political nuts like Allison. Allison, you and your ilk have made our society worse, not better.
They didn’t call a spade a spade – they called a spade the wife of a shovel.
Our publjc schools desparstely need innovative new approaches. Combining health with education all in one place location is a logical and brillang leap forwad. I’m an educator and hope it works and can be replicated through the US.
Our public schools desperately need innovative new approaches. Combining health with education all in one place location is a logical indeed brillant leap forward. I’m an educator hope it works well and can be replicated through the US.
Sounds like a amazing school and I hear nothing but great things from parents!
Why not just take over the Ravenswood district? My three kids are almost adults now, they never attended the Ravenswood Disctric because of the corruptness. Wish this school was around for my kids back then!