Burlington High School Project Behind Schedule, Officials Say

School and city officials taking part in a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new Burlington High School in March Credit: File: Daria Bishop

When Burlington school officials urged voters to approve a $165 million bond for a new high school and technical center last fall, they estimated that the building would be ready for students at the start of the 2025-2026 school year. But in a March 30 memo to Burlington superintendent Tom Flanagan, project manager Joe Weith wrote that the occupancy date has been pushed back to January 2026 at the earliest. That projection “is based on where we are today in the design and bidding process and what we know regarding the current construction market in New England,” Weith wrote.

Administrators and school commissioners discussed Weith’s memo at a school board meeting on Tuesday night. Weith attributed the revised timeline to a number of factors.

First and foremost was a delay in the abatement and demolition of the old high school due to various legal challenges. In December, PCB manufacturer Monsanto filed a legal motion requesting a postponement of the demolition until the company could fully inspect the premises. That was in response to a lawsuit filed by two former teachers who claim PCB exposure caused them to suffer serious health problems. The following month, the school district and Monsanto reached an agreement that would allow the district to begin work in mid-February.

American Environmental, a Massachusetts-based demolition contractor that bid on the high school project, also filed a motion to halt construction of the school, arguing that the district illegally awarded work to another demolition firm. That motion was dismissed in February.

Another factor in the delay, Weith wrote in his memo, was an “unforeseen underground discovery and additional site testing” that slowed down foundation and structural engineering. At the school board meeting, commissioner Polly Vanderputten asked Weith, who was attending remotely, about the discovery. But, due to technical difficulties, he was unable to answer.

“It was not a Lake Monster,” Flanagan quipped.

Additional reasons for the delay, Weith wrote, include a strained bidding market, limited labor resources and unfavorable lead times on materials such as panel boards.

Burlington High School students are currently attending class in the downtown former Macy’s building on Cherry Street. It’s unclear if the district could extend the lease to cover fall 2025 should the construction project be delayed as expected. At the meeting on Tuesday, Flanagan floated the possibility that at least some parts of the new building, such as the gym, could open ahead of January 2026.

Flanagan and other school officials are closely tracking H.486, a bill that would pause the state’s school PCB testing program and allocate $16 million for demolition and removal of PCBs at Burlington High School. The House advanced the measure last week, and it’s now before the Senate.

“I believe [legislators] understand that this is not a local issue; this is a state issue,” Flanagan said. “As the key economic driver of our state, having strong workforce development in place and having a healthy high school is critically important to the health of our state.”
School officials said the next major schedule update for the high school project would be in September.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Flanagan noted that the school district had satisfied the terms of a 2019 settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The settlement came in response to substantiated allegations of peer-on-peer, sex-based harassment at the Sustainability Academy at Lawrence Barnes, one of Burlington’s six elementary schools.

Under the agreement, the district was required to review its harassment policies and procedures, ensure all schools had the capacity to implement them, and provide trainings for faculty and students.

Being released from the settlement agreement is indicative of “five years of really hard work” to ensure all students are safe in school, Flanagan said. Even though the actions called for in the settlement have been completed, the district’s commitment to preventing harassment and bullying will continue, he added.