Burlington Public Schools Prepares to Submit Statement of Interest to State for New/Renovated BHS

Burlington's Select Board and School Committee have voted to send a Statement of Interest (SOI) to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) in the hopes of securing state funding for a new or renovated Burlington High School.

In its first iteration, the BHS Building Committee worked with outside consultants to develop a proposal for an addition-renovation project at Burlington High School – one that would have cost the town $330 million. That proposal would have required a debt exclusion – approval at a town-wide vote to borrow the funding for the project outside the town's taxation limit.

That vote, taken in November 2025, failed by a 2:1 margin. Among the many pieces of feedback provided by community members during the campaign was that some previous SOIs did not do the best job of conveying the school's deficiencies.

Though some suggested a professional grant writer could improve the district's chances, the MSBA explicitly discourages this practice in its User Guide:

The MSBA expects that an SOI can be completed at no cost to the city, town, or regional school district. The MSBA is interested in hearing from local districts about potential problems that may exist in a local school facility. Districts should not seek professional assistance to complete an SOI. The MSBA will NOT reimburse for any expenses that may be incurred in connection with the completion of an SOI.
— MSBA Statement of Interest User Guide

A number of new members joined the School Building Committee after the election. The renewed Building Committee reviewed submissions from previous years, along with current conditions at BHS, to assemble what will be the 14th submission in 15 years to the state's reimbursement body.

School Building Committee Chair Katherine Bond said the Committee went through the document with a fine-tooth comb and worked to highlight the biggest areas of concern by placing them earlier in the document and using bold text to provide extra emphasis. "We deleted a bunch of stuff that sounded redundant and made sure it was concise and clear," she said.

This year's SOI cites three major areas of concern, selected from a list of seven statutory priorities provided by the MSBA:

• 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.

Some combination of these statutory priorities has been used in previous SOIs, though the first was not included in the 2024 submission. The Committee decided other options, such as overcrowding, enrollment growth, and structural integrity, did not apply to Burlington High School.

The submission, said Bond, cites concerns such as a lack of proper ventilation in science labs, the absence of a sprinkler system, and science labs that "are functionally obsolete ... including inoperable sinks and nonfunctional gas valves [which] prevent the laboratories from supporting hands-on laboratory activities."

There was one key box the Committee couldn't check. The Burlington High School project could not be considered the "priority project," since Fox Hill Elementary School is currently under construction via the MSBA program, said School Committee member Melissa Massardo at the April 14 School Committee meeting.

Bond doesn't think that fact is an immediate disqualification. "I don't know what the chances are that we'll get accepted based on our history and what's going on with the elementary school," she said, "but everyone agreed, 'Why not?' There are fewer high schools [applying to the program] from what we understand and new eyes on it every year, and you never know."

After the SOI was finalized and approved by the BHS School Building Committee, it had to be approved at a public meeting by the town's Select Board and School Committee. Both meetings happened this week, with the Select Board voting 5-0 on Monday, April 13, in favor of the submission and the School Committee voting 4-0-1 on Tuesday, April 14 (Jeremy Brooks abstained).

The district plans submit this year's SOI ahead of the April 17 deadline but doesn't expect to hear back until December, as is customary for this process.

In the meantime, said Bond, the High School Building Committee plans to develop a proposal for a phased improvement plan to fall back on in case MSBA support doesn't come through.

While the SOI process plays out over the coming months, there's a separate — and more immediate — bit of potential good news on the funding front. The state senate recently passed a Fair Share Supplemental Budget that would send $150,000 to Burlington to fund capital improvements at Burlington High School. The measure has been sent to the House of Representatives for further review.