The broken pledge on Clarke Avenue

That pledge. It’s a chorus in my mind, mingling with the memories of teachers and administrators — the whistles like necklaces around their necks — who by the afternoons, transformed the small halls where we ate breakfast into vibrant book fairs, stages for a nervous recitals, spelling bees where I learned the ‘s’ in Arkansas is silent.

That place held more than lessons; it cradled what our parents carried with them for thousands of miles, that which cost them their countries, their language, their families: the hope, as tender as a newborn, that their children can grasp a better future here in the United States.

Decades later, when you founded The Primary School, you rekindled that deep-seated hope. Your vision — weaving together health and education, embracing families from birth, confronting systemic barriers head-on — resonated powerfully because it mirrored the dreams of our city. It promised a different narrative. Against the backdrop of institutional instability that claimed Edison Brentwood years ago, you staked a wooden sign with a hand and heart, a symbol of your professed commitment to our kids.

That is why the recent announcement of The Primary School’s impending closure, delivered with the cold impersonality of a website update, lands as more than a disappointment. It is a profound betrayal.

It betrays the parents who poured their trust into your vision.

It betrays the fragile hope that this time, finally, an institution fortified by immense resources would truly anchor itself beside our community for good.

For you and your team, the choice to shut the school was a “difficult decision.” For these children, this was the breaking of a dream, the uprooting of their educational home. Their anguish gives voice to hundreds of families who saw The Primary School not just as classrooms and corridors, but as an essential lifeline in a challenging world.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative operates on a scale that transcends the typical constraints faced by nonprofits or public bodies. The shuttering of this school was not an inevitable outcome dictated by scarcity. It was a deliberate choice made by one of the world’s most powerful philanthropic forces — a choice, Dr. Chan, that seemingly values other objectives above the continuity and well-being of the very children and families The Primary School was created to champion. The rationale remains shrouded, but the consequence is starkly, painfully clear.

Furthermore, the method of this announcement constitutes a failure of leadership and genuine partnership. To convey news of such magnitude via a sterile website statement, bypassing direct, respectful dialogue, is to strip parents of their inherent dignity and agency. Your decision begs me to ask you and your husband, were these families ever equal partners? Or are they moving pieces in the cold calculus of philanthropy?

This cycle — of hopeful investment followed by abrupt withdrawal, of engagement yielding to disillusionment — is not just socially irresponsible. It is a wound our community carries, a wound that relents, we are tired of being the proving ground for experiments that ultimately lack staying power.

While the $50 million transition fund CZI offers is a necessary gesture, it cannot alone mend the deep disruption to lives interwoven with the school. Successes achieved elsewhere, however laudable, cannot compensate for the failure to honor the specific, deeply felt commitment made here, on Clarke Avenue, to the children of East Palo Alto.

Dr. Chan, decisions that redirect the paths of young lives and destabilize families carry an extraordinary weight and moral responsibility. One must hope the gravity of your choice, and the manner in which it was executed, compels profound reflection within your organization. 

This echoes a need felt across America. Communities everywhere deserve more than fleeting projects and conditional philanthropy. We require steadfast partners committed to authentic collaboration, partners who demonstrate unwavering resolve through the inevitable challenges. We need institutions that invest not just in places, but in people — partners who don’t retreat, who safeguard the dreams of our children, ensuring potential is nurtured, not extinguished.

Antonio López is the former mayor of East Palo Alto, and the current poet laureate for San Mateo County.