Good morning, Burlington!

I hope you had a lovely holiday weekend. I certainly did, which explains why I wrote in the weekly that there was a “Senior Athletic Blanket” tonight at BHS. It’s a banquet. Obviously. This is what happens when you write the Buzz curled under a blanket with kids’ movies playing in the background.

I was speaking with a long-time member of our community the other day on the topic of the school building conversations we’ve been having in town. He moved to Burlington in 1949 as a toddler and attended BPS for public school. At that time, there was only the Union School and the High School, which had been created in 1938 so Burlington students didn’t have to travel to neighboring towns.

As the population nearly tripled during the 1950s, and as more children were attending school for longer, the town saw the need for new schools and built a ton of them—some of which no longer exist: Memorial, Wildwood, Meadow Brook, Pine Glen, and Fox Hill for elementary schools before Francis Wyman and another new High School were built in the early 70’s.

Our major industry was agriculture back then. As our community member puts it, “Picture farmers being told by newcomers their taxes were going to increase to accommodate teaching a larger population of students. How many of those farmers only had maybe an 8th grade education?”

All this to say, these conversations are circular. Times change, and the population and its needs with them. We are setting up now for the future of our town, whether or not our own children will ever set foot in the new or remodeled school buildings.

On that note, School Building Committee meets tonight at 6:00.

Today in Burlington

Meetings and Events

• 6:00 PM - Recreation Commission will discuss Senior Fitness Classes. They’ll also reorganize and review subcommittee assignments and discuss the public participation policy. (Town Hall)
• 6:00 PM - School Committee Joint Meeting with Elementary School Building Subcommittee: They’ll recap the community forum, review the Criteria Matrix they’ll be using to assess each option, and more. (BHS and virtual)
• 6:00 PM - Pokémon Club (Library event, grades K-5)
• 6:00 PM - D&D For Beginners (Library event, Grades 4-8; register)

• 6:30 PM - BHS Senior Athletic Banquet (auditorium)
• 7:00 PM - Information Systems Security Advisory Committee (ISSAC) will discuss the cybersecurity mandate for municipal employees and give a status update on policy implementation. (virtual)
• 7:00 PM - Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) has a full agenda: they’ll discuss representation on the School Building Committee, the BEAM audit, Special Olympics, and more. (virtual)
• 7:00 PM - Discover India Series: The Spice Bowl (virtual library event; register)

Sports and Activities

Lots of updates after a few days off from sports:

Track & Field: Boys brought home the D4 Track & Field title on Sunday, and girls tied with Holliston for 3rd. There are too many great individual results to call them out here, but you can check out the teams’ performance on Twitter. Congrats, team!

Lacrosse: Girls beat Methuen in both JV (11-2) and Varsity (12-11 in overtime!) matches on Friday. JV fell to Melrose 6-10 yesterday, but Varsity won their game 10-7, making the Lady Devils your Middlesex Freedom champs! This is the first time ever that boys and girls hold the title in the same year. Great work all season, teams!

Volleyball: Our boys’ volleyball teams played their final regular season match against Greater Lowell Tech on Friday. JV fell to Greater Lowell 0-2, for a final record of 1-18; Varsity won by a score of 3-2 and ended the regular season 13-7.

Softball: Girls lost 0-3 against Central Catholic, bringing their record to a still-impressive 16-4.

Boys will be hosting Concord-Carlisle in lacrosse this afternoon. Play begins at 3:30 at BHS.

That’s all for today. See you tomorrow!

Nicci