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Burlington High School will be visited by state officials this week for a "senior study review," representing a next step in a process district officials warn is far from certain.

The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) is a state agency that partners with communities across the commonwealth to help fund school improvement projects. Three of Burlington's six schools – Marshall Simonds Middle, Memorial Elementary, and Fox Hill Elementary – have taken part in this program and benefited from millions in reimbursements. Most recently, Fox Hill was invited into the program's eligibility period in 2021 and is currently being built with an expected reimbursement of around 30% of the project's $100 million estimated price tag.

Burlington High School, however, has not been as lucky. Burlington's School Committee submitted letters of interest to the MSBA for BHS for 13 years in a row, resulting in rejections each time as the state prioritized schools that were older, overcrowded, and less well maintained.

Following more than a decade of disappointment with BHS, the School Committee opted to try another way to get the high school the support they say it needs. The committee created a school building committee, hiring an owner's project manager and architect for a $1.5-million feasibility study to see what the best next steps would be for the 1970s building. That process, which lasted nearly two years, resulted in a plan to partially demolish and renovate the current school building and add on a new academic wing – a process that would have cost the town $333 million without a state reimbursement. Ultimately, the town's voters rejected that plan, and the debt exclusion it would entail, at a November 2025 special election where more than 36% of the town's voters cast a ballot – nearly two times the turnout for a typical town election.

Following the election, the BHS School Building Committee regrouped, invited new members in, and built a new Statement of Interest (SOI) from the ground up. This SOI centers on three of the MSBA's seven statutory priorities:

  • Prevention of the loss of accreditation
  • Replacement, renovation, or modernization of school facility systems ... to increase energy conservation and decrease energy related costs in a school facility
  • Replacement of or addition to obsolete buildings in order to provide for a full range of programs consistent with state and approved local requirements.

The document was submitted in April, and this summer, said Superintendent Dr. Eric Conti, the district was notified that the BHS SOI was selected for a senior study review. This review consists of a site visit where MSBA representatives will tour the school to ensure the SOI accurately represents the condition of the building.

"We've gone through a senior study in 2017 with our Statement of Interest," said Conti. During that visit, he said, state officials inspected the school and "they said they felt like our statement of interest was well-aligned with the condition of the building."

Conti said he views the invitation as a "positive step forward" but not a guarantee, reminding the School Committee that the senior study is the state's due diligence and does not indicate that the school will be accepted into the reimbursement program.

Each application year is different, said BHS School Building Committee member Doug Davison at the September 16 Ways & Means Committee meeting, because the applicant field is new each year. "There's some quiet and subtle hopefulness that MSBA will go better this time," he said.

Fellow Ways & Means member Frank Monaco pointed out that, though senior studies have been conducted before, it's been nearly 10 years and the building is that much older and becoming more outdated with each passing year. Monaco was optimistic that changing standards amid an unchanging physical environment will make a difference in the application process.

If BHS does end up being invited into the MSBA process, the feasibility work the town did from 2023 to 2025 will not likely carry over. The state's process is prescriptive, and the work to analyze the school's needs and the best way to address them will need to be redone from scratch. Still, Monaco remained hopeful some of the 2023-25 analysis could be incorporated.

The senior study review will take place on September 24. MSBA typically sends invitations to join the reimbursement program in December.

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