The founder of Facebook and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are opening a school with a unique twist: it will offer health services to its students from the moment they are born until their graduation.
The school, which will offer education from the kindergarten level to high school, will be called ‘The Primary School’ and will be a privately owned charity institution. It will open its doors in August of 2016 in East Palo Alto, California.
“It’s a new kind of school which will bring both education and health together”, according to Zuckerberg via Facebook post, naturally. Financed through Zuckerberg’s and Chan’s sponsor fund, this school is targeted to low class students, therefore, tuition will be free of charge. In some cases, the school will enroll students before they are even born by offering prenatal support for their families. The goal is to, literally, offer medical assistance and education from birth to graduation.
The school will also have an on-campus clinic, specially for its students and it will also be associated with the Ravenswood Family Health Center. Ravenswood, which is located near the school future location will also offer medical and dental services to the children and their families.
“Both health and education are strongly intertwined”, said Zuckerberg on his post. “When kids are not healthy it’s harder for them to learn what you’re teaching them. Lots of kids and teachers around the country have to deal with the consequences of poor health in the classroom everyday.”
The Zuckerberg family have previously supported schools with innovating proposals, including their investment at AltSchool, which was created in San Francisco in 2013. Mark and Priscila are expecting their first daughter.