Burlington School Board members have given the district its blessing to move forward with a lease for an alternative space to house the high school, which was shut down in September after high levels of PCB chemicals were located on school grounds.
The old Macy’s building on Cherry Street in downtown Burlington is the preferred alternative site, Burlington Superintendent Tom Flanagan told board members at a Thursday night meeting. He said the Macy’s building is the least costly option and would get students back to in-person learning the soonest.
The board unanimously authorized a resolution that would allow Flanagan to begin lease negotiations. Flanagan would have to return to the board to receive final approval to formally enter into a lease agreement.
The other option on the table is to construct trailers on the high school’s surrounding fields, which Flanagan said would be more costly and take longer to construct.
“The big difference between Macy’s and trailers is that the trailers will be more expensive, more complicated and further down the line,” Flanagan said. “Macy’s is a simpler and less expensive option.”
Still, the Macy’s space has drawbacks. School officials siad the Macy’s building doesn’t have any windows and lacks a full-size gym space. The district would also have to construct classroom walls that would only be 8 feet high and would not reach the ceiling, which could cause noise concerns.
Marty Spaulding, the school district’s director of Property Services, also said there are concerns the Macy’s building has contaminants in its soil as well, left behind by a former dry cleaning store. Spaulding said there will be testing done on the Macy’s site, and if there are contaminants, the district would not move forward with it as an option.
The district is estimating that it would cost $3.5 million to prepare the Macy’s building to house the high school’s nearly 1,000 students. Rent is projected to cost $2.5 million to $3.5 million over two and a half years.
The cost to construct trailers on school grounds would be $3 million to $6 million and $4.9 million to rent the trailers for two and a half years. Spaulding said the trailers cost more because of the sewage and plumbing work the district would have to do to prepare for the number of classrooms they plan to establish. The trailers would also have to be outfitted with sprinkler and fire alarm systems.
School board members are facing intense pressure from the community to get the high school students back to in-person learning. And Flanagan said that in order to meet the district’s goal of in-person instruction by next semester, negotiations would need to move quickly with the Macy building owners.
School district officials had recently announced a plan to get high school students at least one day of in-person learning a week at the Edmunds Middle and Elementary Schools.
The district has also approached the University of Vermont about using some of campus buildings for in-person instruction while college students are on winter break.
School Board Chair Clare Wool said the school district doesn’t have a budget for the high school transition and the costs are “intimidating.”
“These are unbudgeted emergency situations,” Wool said. “We understand we do not have the money for this.”
Which is why the district will attempt to secure state and federal funds to finance the transition. Flanagan said he recently had a meeting with Gov. Phil Scott about the high school situation, and made it known that the district needs help.
The board is postponing a decision on whether the district should remediate the PCBs or demolish the structure and build new. They’re waiting for more PCB testing results which will shed more light on how much remediation would be needed.
According to a survey sent to BHS staff, students, parents and community members, 51% of respondents said they would support building a new high school while temporarily moving to a new space, 24.1% said they would support remediating the school and returning while temporarily moving to a new space; 24.9% said they support returning to the building while remediation occurs.
At the last Burlington School Board meeting, Flanagan presented members with those three options for their consideration moving forward. He said the option to move back into the building is officially off the table. The Burlington Educators Association and the AFSCME union don’t support it, despite a strong push from parents to move back in for the benefits of in-person learning.
Feeling the urgency to find a way to get high school students back to in-person learning, the board unanimously approved the resolution Thursday night despite just having been presented with the new options.
“As many of us are super uncomfortable with this, I also feel as though we don’t have a choice,” said board member Martine Gulick. “Unless we are willing to agree to two years of fully remote instruction, then this is what we have to do.”
