I happen to know a lot about this situation, and there wasn't anything sketchy at all: 1) St. Francis is an expensive ($17k a year, which is actually pretty lo

I happen to know a lot about this situation, and there wasn't anything sketchy at all: 1) St. Francis is an expensive ($17k a year, which is actually pretty low for the area) private school, not a public school that receives funding from the government. 2) Most private schools have endowments and investment vehicles to manage those endowments. Tuition money generally isn't going into these funds, rather they're for donations and capital campaigns. 3) Many of the parents of the kids at St. Francis are tech executives or VCs, so it's not surprising that they're investing in startups instead of more traditional mutual or index funds.