Julia Hondal, a rising junior at Burlington High School, remembers reflecting with her classmates in chemistry class a few months ago about one of the most tumultuous school years the district has ever faced.
Her classmates, largely a group of rising seniors, were discussing whether they should leave Burlington High. The school, like many others around the state, was upended by Covid-19 — but Burlington students were also physically displaced when cancer-causing PCB chemicals were found in the old high school building last fall.
The district scrambled to find a new location and ended up moving into a temporary high school in a former Macy’s department store.
“A lot of them were raising concerns about how their parents wanted them to transfer to South Burlington or Rice [Memorial] High School,” Hondal told VTDigger. “Those were the popular ones that I heard from people around the halls, people talking about how their parents didn’t want them to go to Macy’s.”
Hondal’s own parents considered moving her to South Burlington High School. But she continued getting good grades, she didn’t want to leave her friends, and she had plenty of clubs to keep her busy. So she chose to stay.
While Hondal and her friends have been thinking about changing schools, many other families have followed through. Data provided to VTDigger by the Burlington School District shows that, for the first time in four years, more students have transferred out of BHS than in during this academic year.
During the 2020-21 academic year, 58 students left Burlington High and 41 students entered. The year before, 42 students transferred out and 47 transferred in. The year before that, 50 transferred out and 62 transferred in.
A difference of about 20 students this academic year does not represent a massive exodus from the school, which houses about 1,000 students. And experts say it’s no cause for alarm — yet. Indeed, due to a large incoming class of eighth-grade students, enrollment is growing in the high school from 918 students in 2020-21 to 979 in 2021-22.
But the increase in student transfers demonstrates how families with means can afford to grant their children better opportunities when public institutions are destabilized. VTDigger found that about 40 of the 58 students who left BHS chose to attend a local private school.
Preventing a mass exit from BHS
Burlington Superintendent Tom Flanagan told VTDigger that the district was aware of the rumblings. Administrators knew, he said, that families were thinking about leaving BHS — especially eighth-graders who were rising freshmen.
“We reached out to all of the eighth-grade families who were expressing an interest in applying outside,” Flanagan said. The district offered a tour of the new downtown BHS building in an effort to quell concerns and ease skepticism, answering questions about the new location.
As a result, many of the eighth-graders who’d expressed interest in leaving the district wound up staying, Flanagan said. While he recognized that more BHS students left this year than in the past, the high school’s turnover rate was 1.79%, which Flanagan said is on par with national averages.
“There was more talk of students leaving than there were actually students who left,” Flanagan said.
He said he was more concerned about students leaving last fall, when the district still didn’t have a building to teach students in. But as the school year has come to a close, he said he’s not concerned the transfer trend will continue.
“Our schools are among the best schools that I've seen anywhere,” Flanagan said. “I think that our high school is in a really healthy place.”
Private school enrollments grew during Covid-19
Vermont allows students to attend any public high school in the state, although schools set limits on how many can transfer in during a given year.
South Burlington High School allows admittance to only one student a year through a lottery system if they come from a town with a high school, explained South Burlington High Principal Patrick Burke. To attend South Burlington, a family has to claim residency in the town. And in Vermont’s current highly competitive housing market, moving isn’t easy right now.
Unlike BHS, where learning remained almost completely remote for the first half of the 2020-21 academic year because it had no building to teach in, South Burlington High was able to take a hybrid approach and provide both in-person and virtual learning beginning in the fall.
Burke said he’s fielded inquiries from parents about transferring their children from BHS to South Burlington, but if any have actually made the move, they’re in the single digits.
It’s much easier to transfer to private schools, which will often take students from around the state — at least for those who can afford the pricey tuition costs of Rice Memorial High School or the Vermont Commons School, both of which are located in Chittenden County.
Rice, which has an annual tuition cost of $12,425, including fees, has boosted its enrollment considerably this past year, said Christy Bahrenburg, director of advancement and communications for Rice. And Rice is not alone — enrollment at pricey, independent institutions has grown across the country as parents sought out in-person learning.
Bahrenburg said Rice took in 37 students who transferred from BHS in the fall. Due to both the influx of BHS students and those from other areas, Rice’s enrollment grew 28% during the academic year.
She said the primary concern Rice has heard from BHS parents is that they wanted their children to have as much in-person learning as they could get during the pandemic. Rice was able to offer four days of in-person instruction for its approximately 350 students. Both Rice and BHS will be offering five days of in-person learning this upcoming academic year.
Bahrenburg said Rice provides about $750,000 in tuition assistance every year to make the school more accessible for some families.
“In general, private education can be challenging for people who are middle of the road, who don't qualify for aid, but also don't have the means to be able to write that check for $12,000,” she said.
Jill Strawbridge, director of admissions for the Vermont Commons School, declined to disclose how many BHS students transferred to the Commons School this year. The school’s tuition is more than double Rice’s, at $27,553 for the 2021-22 school year, according to its website.
Transferring can be particularly difficult for families of students with disabilities. By law, public schools are required to provide special education programming to students with disabilities. Private schools have no such obligation. Bahrenburg confirmed that Rice, as a largely college preparatory-oriented school, does not offer any disability programming.
How does an uptick in transfers affect funding, equity?
Jay Nichols, executive director of the Vermont Principals' Association, said the total loss of 20 students for a school of Burlington’s size isn’t alarming. The state calculates local property taxes based on how much a district spends per pupil. So if enrollment drops significantly, school districts have an incentive to cut spending to keep property tax rates steady.
“If you’re talking about 18 students total, at a school the size of Burlington, you’re probably not going to have a huge impact over one year,” Nichols said.
Rebecca Holcombe, former Vermont secretary of education, also isn’t concerned about this past year’s loss of students. She said she would be more concerned if BHS reported a steep decline over many years. That would raise concerns that wealthier families are “defunding” public schools by leaving behind fewer resources for other students who can’t afford private school.
She added that when wealthier students leave a public school district, it creates less of an inclusive learning environment.
“There’s no way to desegregate or maintain an inclusive environment if a growing proportion of your population is in a more segregated environment,” she said, referring to private schools. “Because you can’t desegregate with kids who left the public system.”
Holcombe said it’s important to recognize that both BHS administrators and parents dealt with overwhelming challenges this past year.
“On top of all the Covid chaos, they have facilities challenges that went above and beyond,” Holcombe said. “You’ve got parents who’ve got kids who feel like two of their years have been disrupted and now they’re looking at more disruption associated with the high school challenges.”
“And I get it,” she added. “It feels hard when your kid has one shot.”