Mark Zuckerberg, one of the richest men on the planet, could not keep his small tuition-free home-based school from being shut down by city officials.
This was not a sprawling campus or an elite prep academy. It was basically a homeschool co-op for 14 students, including Zuckerberg’s two daughters. Yet, it was closed for violating city zoning laws.
If the man who built Facebook cannot navigate city regulations to keep a small school open, what chance does a teacher with a dream have?
Like many parents, Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan started their school during COVID-19 to give children stability and high-quality instruction. While it employed a few teachers, it was not a business in the traditional sense. But Palo Alto classified it as one anyway. This is a clear example of the rigid one-size-fits-all nature of local zoning laws.
Across the country, microschool founders hit the same wall. Zoning rules and building codes, written for large institutions, end up crushing small, community-based learning spaces. These laws were originally meant to stop large developments from invading residential areas. But a dozen neighborhood kids is not the same as a 500-student campus.
The result is that families lose access to high-quality, personalized options. Microschools often serve kids who do not thrive in traditional classrooms. Many are founded by former teachers who left because they had better ideas that could only work outside the public school system.
Some states have begun to fix the zoning problem. In Utah, Libertas helped pass what is now considered the gold standard: allowing microschools in all zones and giving them the freedom to operate in commercial spaces.
But most places still make it nearly impossible. Without reform, passionate educators will keep running into the same wall Zuckerberg just slammed into.
Here’s the lesson: If billionaire resources cannot overcome bad zoning laws, nothing will except changing the laws themselves.
We changed the law in Utah. Next we want to change it in every state, even if we have to rewrite the International Building Code.
