This is one in a series of in-depth explainers about issues affecting the town of Burlington. More will be added for Hive members to enjoy throughout 2024 and beyond.

Burlington’s school buildings are top of mind in 2023 as the town decides how to proceed with its three oldest facilities to ensure its buildings are adequately serving the district’s 3,200 students. Now that the town has the potential to gain millions of dollars of state subsidies for one or two of the town’s elementary schools, the possibility of bringing others up to date is provoking much discussion, and the outcomes of these conversations will affect everyone living here for the next several decades—even those who don’t have children in the schools at the moment.

In this Buzz In-Depth, you can read more about:

• The History of School Buildings in Burlington
• Burlington School Buildings Today
• Burlington High School MSBA Engagement
• Focusing on Fox Hill
• Enrollment and the Four-School Model
• What About Pine Glen?
• Where Does the Elementary School Building Project Stand Today?
• The Latest on Fox Hill
• What About Burlington High School?
• Links and Additional Resources

The History of School Buildings in Burlington

School Buildings have been a topic of conversation around Burlington since even before the town was incorporated in 1799. In the late 1700s, the town began erecting buildings to meet the educational needs of Burlington’s children.

Elementary Schools

Like many towns of the area, Burlington started out by building a one-room schoolhouse at each corner of the compass. Eventually, demand grew for a school to serve students living in the middle of town, and the Center School was built in the mid-1800s. In 1898, the one-room schoolhouses were consolidated into a single Union School building, which housed all the town’s primary students, at the corner of Center and Sears Streets. This building now houses the police station.

Burlington began feeling the need for an elementary school expansion in the post-WWII era. New elementary schools were built in the 50s and 60s:

• 1954: Memorial (Rebuilt in 2011)
• 1956: Wildwood (Closed in 1996; now the site of the Wildwood playground)
• 1959: Meadowbrook (Closed in 1980)
• 1962: Pine Glen
• 1967: Fox Hill
• 1968: Francis Wyman (Renovated in 1996). This was originally a junior high, and then a middle school. After that, the building was leased by outside organizations before reopening in 1996 as an elementary school.

None of the original schoolhouses is still standing in its original form today, but the relocated West School (moved from the Simonds Park area when the Center School was built) can still be seen at the corner of Francis Wyman and Bedford Streets. The North School is now a private residence, and the Center School houses the Burlington Historical Museum.

Middle Schools/Junior High School

As mentioned, the Francis Wyman School used to be a junior high. In 1973, with the opening of BHS on Cambridge Street, both Francis Wyman and Marshall Simonds became middle schools. Currently, Marshall Simonds is the only middle school; it was renovated in 2012.

High School

A high school wasn’t built in Burlington until 1939. Before that, the town’s high schoolers were educated in neighboring towns. One by one, however, they filled to the point of not being able to accept Burlington students. The first high school sat in the space that now houses the Human Services Building at 61 Center Street; in 1961, a new high school opened on Winn Street. And finally, in 1973, the current high school building was built at 123 Cambridge Street.

(Thanks to Wayne Higden and Judy Wasserman via Wicked Local for helping out with this.)

Burlington School Buildings Today

Currently, Burlington has six School Buildings:

• Burlington High School (Built 1973; Current enrollment estimate: 886)
• Marshall Simonds Middle School (Built 1961, Renovated 2012; Current enrollment estimate: 863)
• Memorial Elementary School (Built 2011; Current enrollment estimate: 384)
• Francis Wyman Elementary School (Built 1968, Renovated 1996; Current enrollment estimate: 483)
• Fox Hill Elementary School (Built 1967; Current enrollment estimate: 450; 4-5 classrooms per grade level)
• Pine Glen Elementary School (Built 1962; Current enrollment estimate: 338)

Burlington High School MSBA Engagement

To say that Burlington High School needs work is not a controversial statement. The building stands largely as it did when it was constructed half a century ago, and there are a number of issues with the facility. In fact, a survey of stakeholders several years ago ranked BHS as the #1 priority for facilites improvements.

Some of the concerns with the high school:

• Outdated science facilities
• Lack of windows in many classrooms
• Accessibility of some spaces
• No sprinklers
• HVAC boilers are at end-of-life

Due to the place of the high school on the town’s priority list, the district has attempted to secure funding from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) for renovation or reconstruction for more than a decade now. Each year, the district has submitted a Statement of Interest (SOI), and each year it has been denied.

The process has changed over time, along with the changing priorities of the MSBA, but it’s a bit opaque as the state doesn’t provide feedback as to why an application was denied. The district’s best guess as to why they haven’t been able to secure this state reimbursement is twofold:

1. The district takes such good care of its buildings that the high school, despite its age, is not falling down and thus repair/replacement is not urgent.
2. There is no enrollment pressure, as the school is not bursting at the seams. It was built for 2,000 students, and there are currently fewer than 900 students enrolled.

The high school currently houses the Burlington Early Childhood Center (the town’s integrated preschool), Burlington Cable Access Television, the Burlington Public Schools Central Administration, and the Science Center.

The district submitted another SOI to the MSBA for the high school in 2023, which was again denied. In the meantime, they have formed a building committee so the district can get started on planning for whatever the future of BHS will be. The committee’s work mimics the MSBA process, with the hope that they can transition into the MSBA program if the school ends up getting accepted.

Town Meeting, the legislative body that approves budgeting and capital expenditures for the town, has appropriated 1.5 million dollars to fund a feasibility study for the high school, and the High School Building Committee has chosen an Owner's Project Manager (Dore & Whittier) and an Architect (Tappé Architects) to complete the feasibility study, which is currently underway.

Focusing on Fox Hill

After a decade of not receiving state funds for the high school, the district decided to try for funding to rebuild one of its elementary schools. While not the oldest school in the system, Fox Hill suffers from the precise problems the high school doesn’t have: enrollment pressure and a facility that doesn’t function well as a school.

The snowflake design that seemed so innovative in the 60s doesn’t meet the needs of today’s educational environments. The accordion walls between classrooms, originally intended to create an open workspace concept, aren’t used as intended and also don’t provide adequate sound dampening between classrooms. In addition, since every wall is essentially an outside wall, it might be the least energy efficient building in the town’s inventory.

When the district submitted their Statement of Interest for Fox Hill, an important box was checked: The district agreed to consider consolidation of two schools. Then, when they received their acceptance from the state, it’s no surprise that the state requested for the district to plan a project that combined the town’s two smallest (and geographically proximal) schools: Fox Hill and Pine Glen.

Town Meeting appropriated $1.5 million for a feasibility study, and the Elementary School Building Committee (formerly called the Fox Hill School Building Committee) contracted with an Owners Project Manager (Dore & Whittier) and a design firm (DiNisco Design) to examine the different options.

The state requires the group to examine options such as simple code upgrades, addition/renovation for a single school, and new construction. Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Eric Conti, asked the state if the team could consider a single-school rebuild as well, and so the team looked at the possibility of rebuilding just Fox Hill or Pine Glen, as well as combining both schools into a single building as the state originally requested.

During the summer of 2023, all the options (and their suboptions) were considered, and many were struck off as not feasible or not adequate to meet the needs of the town’s educational program. As of September, 2023, the only two options remaining were to build a single school for 325 students at the Fox Hill site or to build a double “butterfly school” with a wing for each school and shared facilities on the Fox Hill site.

Enrollment and the Four-School Model

Burlington has gone through many different school configurations over the generations, from four (and later five) one-room school houses, to a consolidated Union School, to the six schools of the 1950s and ’60s and now to the four schools we’ve had for nearly 30 years. Neighborhood school has become a part of the identity of many Burlington residents, with some real estate listings even touting the neighborhood school attached to the home.

As mentioned, the Statement of Interest that was submitted in 2020 and signed by then-Chair, Christine Monaco, indicated that the district would be willing to consider consolidating Fox Hill and Pine Glen, Burlington’s two oldest and smallest schools, which also happen to be located very close to one another. But some community members and School Committee members were unhappy when the MSBA requested that the district look at building a combined Fox Hill-Pine Glen school.

A large part of the problem came from the enrollment projections, which suggested there would be upwards of 800 students at the combined school. At that point, the School Committee took a vote in May of 2021 not to move forward with the consolidation option. However, the district asked the state to review the enrollment numbers with an 18-student class size, as has been the district’s commitment. After taking another look at enrollment across the district, the MSBA offered two options: a 325-student Fox Hill or a combined school with a capacity of 640.

That May 2021 vote has come to be synonymous with School Committee Support of a four-school model, but the terms were clear when the enrollment agreement with MSBA was signed in February of 2022 by then-chair, Tom Murphy: to look at both the single school and the combined school.

Still, the design of the combined school shifted in an attempt to reflect a four-school model. The final design that was voted down had a wing for Fox Hill, a wing for Pine Glen, and shared facilities in the middle.

What About Pine Glen?

The Pine Glen school has shifted in and out of focus throughout the conversation about Fox Hill. On the one hand, Pine Glen is the oldest building still being used as a public school in Burlington. On the other hand, say district administrators, it functions better as a school than Fox Hill does. Students and staff members mostly have adequate places to teach and learn and while not perfect, creative solutions to increase instructional space have so far worked.

The building has undergone renovations including asbestos abatement, a new roof, a reconfigured front vestibule, and new floors over the last 7-11 years, and the entrance to the campus has undergone repaving and tree removal. The building is technically accessible to individuals with mobility challenges. (There are, however) no sprinklers in this building.

Two big questions loom about Pine Glen:

• When will the district rebuild or significantly renovate the school?
• Does it even need that level of work at this point?

School Committee member Christine Monaco has expressed her plans to request that the School Committee put a Pine Glen feasibility study on the Town Meeting warrant in May 2024, when the town and school budgets are voted on. This didn't make it onto the warrant, though some would say the lion's share of a feasibility study was already done when the school was being looked at for the Fox Hill project.

Where Does the Elementary School Building Project Stand Today?

As of late-summer 2024, the School Building Committee and its several working groups meet continuously. The objective of each meeting is to move the MSBA process along: They moved from organizing and selecting an Owners Project Manager (OPM) to creating a website to keep the public informed to codifying the educational programs present at Fox Hill and Pine Glen and the spaces and adjacencies necessary to execute this educational program.

At each meeting, the public has been invited to participate, and the majority of the feedback has been from a handful of community members in favor of keeping the “smaller” Fox-Hill-only school. (Smaller is in quotation marks, because square-footage-wise, it would be the second largest elementary school in Burlington, at 90,000 square feet on two or three floors, compared with its current single-story size of about 65,000 square feet. A combined school would be three stories and around 155,000 square feet.)

The feedback about maintaining a four-school model was vocal and continuous, albeit from a very small percentage of Burlington residents, and the School Building Committee ultimately voted to rebuild only Fox Hill and leave Pine Glen as-is.

Categories of Community Input about the Fox Hill/Pine Glen Elementary Building Project

Enrollment Projections

Many community and School Building Committee members disagree with the MSBA enrollment projections and fear that, regardless of which school is built, it will be at capacity before the construction is even complete. Since the MSBA reimbursement is contingent on the district using their enrollment projections, some argue it will make more sense to build a smaller Fox Hill and then the town will have a little more flexibility in the future if it maintains a school at the Pine Glen site. Others believe that building the 640-student butterfly school on the Fox Hill site will give the school district more flexibility in responding to future enrollment needs.

Traffic

Opponents of the larger “butterfly” school, which would house 640 Fox Hill and Pine Glen students as well as district programs such as LABBB, have expressed concerns about the impact of traffic on the residential neighborhoods abutting the Fox Hill Site.

A traffic study has been completed in the area, and the area received mostly A grades (on a scale from A through F). Some suggestions were made to further control traffic flow, and the preliminary designs include on-site traffic mitigation measures. Pedestrian access was also mentioned, and new signs have been posted in the area and another crossing guard placed as of the beginning of the 2023-24 school year.

The OPM and architectural firm have suggested that the school district work with the town to devise solutions for increased traffic that will occur as a result of a consolidation.

Educational Outcomes

Another concern raised by some community members refers to educational outcomes of large schools.

There is actually no research on educational outcomes in a situation such as Burlington’s. Any of the research that has been done has focused on (a) secondary schools with (b) 800 or more students. An enrollment of 640, in the academic literature, is considered to be at the low end of medium and, as mentioned above, since the schools would be separated into two individually functioning schools, this is even more of a boutique case that is not covered in any education research.

What is emphasized in the literature is the importance of children having adults that know and understand them, and since class sizes aren’t going to change, there’s no reason to believe the nurturing environment that parents, students, and children report appreciating at these two schools will change.

Some critics question whether the butterfly school will actually remain as two separate schools over time.

Student Safety

Student physical and psychological safety in a large and overwhelming three-story building has been cited as a reason for concern. In response, the architectural firm created a two-story version of the single Fox-Hill school. A combined school would need to be three stories.

Some community members are not as concerned, noting that there are schools and apartment buildings across the state that house this many elementary students and more, and that many of them are two or three stories tall.

Community Character

Those who oppose the 640-student school have also expressed concern about maintaining the small-town feel of this side of Burlington. The Fox Hill neighborhood is almost entirely residential, with just one small commercial building complex at Plaza 62. That’s why their families moved here, some say, and they’d like to keep the intimate feeling of having two separate, smaller schools.

On the other hand, in such a highly residential area, it makes sense that there are a lot of kids in the schools, said one School Building Committee member at a recent meeting.

Cost and Collateral Projects

The estimated costs and district share have been the topic of much conversation, because these costs will be passed on to homeowners, taxpayers, and renters as the Fox Hill and other building projects get approved and get underway in the next several years.

The Fox Hill school isn’t the only large capital project the town will need to undergo during the next several years. The high school and the police station (not a part of the school department, but relevant nonetheless) are each in the process of undergoing a feasibility study to determine how to best bring these facilities into the (mid-)21st century. (The police station, don’t forget, was built as the Union School in 1898.) These projects, once they are undertaken, will cost hundreds of millions of dollars depending on what they end up entailing, and the public could be paying on all of them simultaneously for decades.

Knowing that these town priorities are on the horizon is important, though some members of the School Building Committee prefer to focus the conversation on the project they’ve been charged to move forward. So, here are the preliminary cost projections for the elementary school options that still remain on the table:

• Single Fox Hill for 325 students on the Fox Hill site: This project would cost about $105 million, and the district share would be around $80 million after MSBA reimbursement.
• Combined Fox Hill-Pine Glen with separate administration and shared central facilities for 640 students on the Fox Hill site: This project would cost about $175 million, and the district share would be about $113 million.

Prior to the vote being taken, community members and School Building Committee members appeared to be divided on which makes the most fiscal sense, and they were having even more difficulty balancing financial concerns with the desires and needs of the students, staff, and parents at each school as well as residents and businesses, whose taxes are certain to go up as a result of this and other capital projects. The potential tax burden to residents for just the Fox Hill building project is summarized in the following table.

To rebuild a single Pine Glen without state reimbursement would cost about $93 million. That’s not really on the table anytime soon, though, as the district has made it clear that BHS will be next on the list, regardless of what happens with the Fox Hill project.

The question the School Building Committee was ultimately tasked with answering was: Will a new, 325-student Fox Hill and a 61-year-old, well-maintained Pine Glen, along with the existing Francis Wyman and Memorial schools, meet the needs of Burlington’s educational population in the decades to come? Or will a 640-student Fox Hill-Pine Glen combo be the best choice to take care of the town’s elementary school building needs for decades to come? This option would leave a school building and property for other potential future uses, but it would also come with the knowledge that the building would still be subject to maintenance and operational costs. Ultimately, they opted for the former.

However, there are still hurdles to overcome as Town Meeting must approve funding for the project in September 2024 and the town will need to vote in April 2024 on whether or not to use a debt exclusion for both this project and the police station, which will cost the town around $45 million. And we can't forget that Burlington High School (the district's #1 priority) also needs to be addressed.

Community Meetings and Updates

A Community Meeting was held on September 18, 2023, to update the community at large on the Fox Hill Building Project and listen to questions and feedback from attendees. The points brought up echo what has already been stated in this summary, with a few additional points:

The reimbursement would be around 25% for whatever project the town end up doing. That’s not chump change, but it’s also not as high as the town had hoped. This number is based on a lot of factors and is determined by the MSBA. Reimbursements, once the project begins, would happen monthly, with additional incentives for certain added amenities such as sustainability.

• According to MSBA data, the new construction projects they’ve funded since 2019 have been either consolidations (average enrollment of 718) or single schools (average enrollment 614).

• The plan for what the school department will do with Pine Glen if it is not consolidated into this building project seems unclear. The next priority is the high school, and some would say it should be the first priority and the district shouldn’t even be bothering with the Fox Hill project right now. With that knowledge, a few different scenarios come up, and none of them have Pine Glen being addressed at a large scale anytime soon:

  • If the town waits for MSBA funding to build a new Pine Glen, the earliest the project could begin would be 2028, and that’s if BHS isn’t accepted into the MSBA program.

  • If BHS were accepted, that timeline shifts closer to 2035.

  • If the district didn’t get MSBA money for BHS or Pine Glen and waited for the Fox Hill project to fall off the bonding schedule, it would be 25 years or more.

What's the Latest on Fox Hill?

The 15 voting members of the School Building Committee sent their final decision to rebuild the Fox Hill School only to the state in December 2023. Following that, a more detailed schematic design was developed and submitted in the summer of 2024. After that’s approved (The MSBA Board vote is expected on August 28), the town has 120 days to secure local funding approval.

The current plan for this funding is for Town Meeting to vote on a Warrant Article in September that would approve funding for the project. Then, at next April's town election, a debt exclusion would be placed onto the ballot, meaning that the increase in taxes resulting from this project wouldn't be subject to the state's 2.5% cap on tax increases for the life of the bond.

That brings us to where we are now, in August of 2024. The most up-do-date news on the Fox Hill project is that it will:

• house Fox Hill only and will not be combined with Pine Glen.
• be two-story (not three, as was originally proposed).
• be located at the northern corner of the Fox Hill site, approximately 85 feet from the existing building.
• cost between $50 and $60 million, after rebates and reimbursements, and the debt service will translate to a little under $200 annually for the median taxpayer.
• feature geothermal heat pumps (with a non-gas-powered backup generator) for climate control; other sustainability features the team is looking into include rooftop solar panels and potential rainwater harvesting.

The construction bidding process will likely take us to the end of 2025, and construction would be completed around 2028, though these are just estimates.

What About Burlington High School?

As mentioned above, the Burlington High School feasibility study is underway. You can find more information about the status of this project at the website and by viewing the video below. Since this project is not bound by the MSBA process, the timeline is more flexible. There will be a community listening meeting on September 26 for the public to learn more about the project and provide input to the architects and project managers.

Links And Additional Resources

Fox Hill Building Project website, where you can find agendas, minutes, and official documents relating to this project.

Burlington High School Building Project website

MSBA website, where you can learn about the process for state reimbursement.

BCAT School Committee Meeting Coverage