Focus on Fox Hill Part 1: MSBA Engagement

The Burlington community has an opportunity this fall to vote to replace the Fox Hill Elementary School Building through the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) grant program for rebuilding or renovating school buildings. But what exactly does that mean? Learn about the Fox Hill MSBA engagement today, and continue reading throughout the week for more in-depth information on this project.

The MSBA Grant program is a competitive program that reimburses districts for a percentage of what it will cost to renovate or replace a school building in exchange for going through an in-depth process to study the district's needs and plan & construct a school that will meet those needs. According to the MSBA website, schools are accepted into the program based on verified need and urgency. Anecdotally, district representatives and consultants have observed that many accepted schools either are in very bad condition or are subject to significant enrollment pressure.

Burlington has used MSBA funding to complete two building projects: the construction of Memorial Elementary School in 2011 and the Marshall Simonds Middle School renovation in 2012. Much has changed since then, with construction prices skyrocketing and MSBA reimbursement rates going down. The Memorial School cost $26.1 million, for example, and received a 52% ($14 million) reimbursement, while the Fox Hill School is expected to cost around $100 million and be reimbursed at about $31 million.

Following the Memorial and Marshall Simonds projects, the district begin submitting Statements of Interest to MSBA to address their next top priority, Burlington High School. Year after year, though, their applications were rejected. While the MSBA doesn't provide a reason in their rejection, the suspicion of the district has been that, as described above, since the building was well-maintained and the enrollment was far under capacity, the need wasn't seen as urgent. (The school was built for 2,000 students and currently houses around 900, along with the district's Central Office, Burlington Cable Access Television, the Burlington Early Childhood Center, the LABBB Collaborative, and more.)

After a decade of rejections for the high school, the district decided to move down the list and submit a Statement of Interest (SoI) for rebuilding Fox Hill Elementary. That document was submitted in 2020 with approval from the School Committee. With its unusual snowflake layout, largely non-functioning accordion doors between classrooms, and an enrollment that has specials teachers moving from room to room on carts, Fox Hill made an effective case and was accepted into the grant program. Notably (and something we'll discuss in a later edition), the district checked a box on the SoI that identified the project as a "potential consolidation" with Pine Glen.

Following the acceptance of Fox Hill into the MSBA program,

• A School Building Committee was formed.
• A design team was hired, including an Owner's Project Manager (Dore & Whittier) and architect/designer (DiNisco Design).
• A Feasibility Study was performed, including cataloging the existing conditions at Fox Hill and the educational programming needs.
• The Preliminary Design Plan and Preferred Schematic Report were submitted and approved by the MSBA.
• The Schematic Design has been submitted to, and approved by, the MSBA, leaving 120 days to obtain funding approval from the local funding authority, which is Town Meeting.

Town Meeting will be considering the question of funding this project at September's Town Meeting, which begins on Monday, September 23. If funding is approved, the detailed design work will begin. If all goes according to plan, the school will be ready to welcome its first class of students in the fall of 2028.

Stay tuned for the rest of the week and learn more about where we are, how we got here, and how it fits within the larger context of capital projects around town.

Learn more about MSBA engagement and the rest of the project at the Fox Hill Building Project website via the videos embedded under the top image. Learn more about the history of school buildings in Burlington in our In-Depth report.