14 years ago, the Burlington Public Schools did a review of the condition of all the school buildings in town to find out what repairs were needed and what was a priority. The top priority was to renovate or replace Burlington High School. The School District immediately started applying to the state agency which sometimes helps fund school building projects (the MSBA) for financial assistance with this project. When I joined the School Committee 10 years ago, we had not been selected into their program for three years already. Of course, we wanted to get partial state reimbursement for such a large project, so we continued to apply to the state, with no success.
The feedback they gave us was that our application was a good one, and that we needed to do this project. However, they receive over 90 applications a year and there is funding only for about 15 projects a year. One of their top criteria for accepting a project is enrollment pressure. The Burlington Public Schools has had relatively flat enrollments recently and in the foreseeable future. Thus, we were never accepted into the MSBA program for reimbursement.
Note – MSBA does not reimburse for administrative space – but that is not a criteria for acceptance or rejection of state funding for a project. It just means the town has to pay the full cost of renovations to administrative spaces. We also were not eligible for the state Accelerated Repair Program.
After 13 years of being turned down by the MSBA, we decided that we couldn’t wait any longer. Town Meeting generously funded a $1.5 million feasibility study so that we could move forward. For two years, 25 people from the community and the schools, from diverse perspectives, along with professionals with expertise in school buildings and architecture, met as the BHS School Building Committee. This project is the result of that careful study.
The professionals that we worked with offered many options for us to consider, despite the fact that the BHS campus site has many limitations. Among them are wetlands, proximity to neighborhoods, rock ledge, and floodplains. When we didn’t like those options, they looked outside the box, thought creatively, and suggested other possibilities, including offsite. There were some options that seemed promising but turned out to be not feasible. We considered all of the options that I have heard raised as objections.
After two years of working on this, we chose the project that is before you – a brand-new academic wing for our children, renovations to some expensive parts of the building that are still usable (like the gyms and auditorium), and demolition of the worst parts of the building.
This project also has the advantage of the least disruption for our students. They will remain in the current classrooms until the new classrooms are ready, and move only once. Plus there is no wasted cost for classrooms for our students while the construction is ongoing.
Please vote YES in November for the debt exclusion. Thanks!