 Okay, welcome everyone. I guess we'll start with some introductions. I'm Sylvie and I attended BHS, graduated in 2019, and I'm joined with Nora who goes to BHS now and is going to answer some questions for us about what it's like to go to school there. Okay guys, hi I'm Nora. I'm a junior at Burlington and I also attend the Tech Center which is kind of close to the campus but not really on it. And I'm a three-season athlete. Wow, what do you do? I play hockey and field hockey and tennis. Oh awesome, to get transition is like what is the sport situation been like with all the fields are still at the old BHS and busing and everything like that? Yeah, most of the underclassmen, since they can't drive, they hop on the bus right after school and then they just take it down to the field and a lot of practices start at like 345, which our school gets out of 315. So sometimes they're a little bit late but if they're able to like get a ride with some of the upperclassmen, I think it's fine. But it is kind of a little bit of a commute. I think it would have been really nice if our school was attached to the fields but it's okay. Yeah, yesterday I had a tour of BHS with the principal and she was saying that a few days ago there were some people practicing on the field at BHS and they had to do a shelter in place because of the thunder and lightning but there was no place so they just had to get on the bus and go back to BHS because there's nowhere inside where they can go when they're at the fields besides like maybe the bathrooms and the locker rooms. Yeah, and even the bathrooms, they're not even open like all year round. I think right now they're locked because if the water is not running then they just like lock the bathrooms. Yeah, so there is no shelter at the field so when it's like thundering, I guess kids that didn't have cars or cars had to hop back on a bus and they like went and did a class of like what's it called when you watch your game? Films. Yeah. They did films back at the old school or the new school. Yeah, brand new. Yeah, I mean I guess that makes sense. Are you still able to like host home games? Yeah, we totally do. We had like four games this week. I'm actually shadowing the trainer at the field so that's really fun. We still have a trainer and like all that good stuff and we do track meets. We host everything still. There's nothing that we can't really host because we're remote-ish. What about basketball? Yeah, that's a good one. The basketball since our gym is now off limits, the boys and girls play at UVM if they have open gym space or St. Mike's for their home games, which is kind of cool honestly. Yeah, it was really fun for us to get to go into those spaces. But yeah, so it was like a very tight schedule and the practices were pretty late at night for them during the regular season because of the UVM kids that actually have to practice there. Yeah, that makes sense. So I guess let's just start by kind of explaining what the downtown BHS is, Burlington High School, and I guess talk kind of about what it's like to go to school there. Okay, well there's no windows so it's kind of a hard environment to like focus in if you're an outdoorsy person and the lights are very bright. Like when you walk into a mall and the lights are really harsh, those are the same lights since they never actually changed them. And then some kids actually wear sunglasses inside just because the lights give them headaches, so I think that's kind of funny. But we don't have walls that go all the way up to the ceiling so that it's kind of echoey and loud, and you can hear multiple classrooms as you're in the same classroom. Someone bands playing, it gets kind of loud, but yeah. That can be distracting, but I think a lot of us students have adapted to it, like you adapt to everything, but it doesn't really bother me anymore. It's just kind of a safety issue when it comes to not having walls if we go into lockdown or anything. Yeah, that makes sense. Does the overall, I mean I know being downtown is kind of like there's a lot going on around the school, so is it like do you feel like it's a safe place? Like I know yesterday on the tour they were mentioning like just church street and the bus stop and there's a lot of really busy areas right next to the school. Yes, totally. Especially the bus stop that's really close. It's free transportation right now, so there's a lot of homeless people in Burlington, and sometimes they're like not trying to harass, but you get harassed a little bit. As a freshman at a high school, you're not really used to that yet, used to going downtown by yourself, but I think a lot of the students got used to interacting with them pretty quickly because it's so frequent, and we have a security guard that's right at the entrance and we have to show our IDs as soon as we walk in, like even if he knows you, it's super strict, so that's good. I feel really safe in my school, but that's good. Is there just one entrance? There's two, or no, there's three entrances. One of them is locked from the outside and you can never get in. Another one is from the garage, the parking garage, which I think we should talk about too, because that's really important, but that one is also locked unless you're a teacher. You can like buzz in and they can skin your ID, but a lot of kids are like in and out throughout the day, so there's normally kids around there that will let you in if you're in a rush because if you can't get in from the parking garage, then you have to walk up the hill and go all the way around, which is kind of annoying. It takes like three minutes, which if you're late to school, it's an issue, but the front, you have to buzz in and they'll unlock the doors and then we have our security guard right there, so it's pretty secure. Yeah, that's good. I know at the old VHS there was like probably 15 doors, like entrances, places where you could get in and you could kind of like just snake your way in and out of anywhere, and a lot of kids had to, because it was, well there was five buildings and then there's ramps between each one that were above ground, or not above ground, but like bridges, and the only way you could get to most of the bridges is if you took stairs, and so students who are handicapped would have to go outside and around to get from building to building, which was just so unbelievably inaccessible, and so VHS... Oh, that worked in the winter times. It was just we had to be careful, and I think that's why I think in 2019 there was a bill passed for a new school to be built, which obviously then got pushed around because of everything, but yeah, we really need it. Yeah, that was incredibly inaccessible. I think another safety feature is the fact that our school is so small, and we have a lot of our guidance and student support right in the middle of our school where the escalators are, so you can see the student support teachers right there as you're going up the escalator down from class, and there's always teachers around supporting you, and I don't know, there's always eyes on you in the building, there's not really anywhere you can hide, so I think that's another good thing because it's helping kids from skipping class, probably. Yeah, I mean it's got to be like a fifth of the size of the old one. It's very small. It's just one building, like there's no where you can go. Yeah, so I don't even have like a gym, so. Yeah, I saw the gym, it looks like a little like CrossFit, like it's just like some mats and workout equipment and four square. P.E. looks very different here than what I heard about the other Burlington, but most of the time if it's nice out they're just going down to the waterfront, playing like games down there, or they walk up to the YMCA and use a group fitness room to do a workout. That's awesome. I mean, that makes sense. You're right in downtown, and yeah, so that's a good use of the resources that we have. Yeah, definitely. The location does give us so many opportunities. Yeah, so what's the parking, like the parking garage? Where is it? The parking garage is connected to the hotels around and our school, so we're in the middle of the hotels in the garage, and so at the beginning of the school year they said they set out like an email that was talking about the cost of parking because it's not free, and the first initial email was that it was going to cost $270 for the school year for someone to get a parking pass, and my initial thought was I will take the bus. So then they lowered it a little bit because they realized that was just like insane. It was just not approachable for any student. So they lowered it to $160, and still I was not really happy with that, so I found a way to not get a parking pass and still be able to drive to school, which the parking garage people kind of got a hold of recently, and they realized that kids were cheating the system, so you could do two hours of free parking in the app, and then after the two hours was up I would do it again and then again until the school day was over, but they figured out that now once you put your license plate in and the two hours parking free you get it once in one day, and then it started charging me, so I've been parking like on Elmwood Street, which is three blocks, four blocks away from the school, which is kind of a far walk, and it goes past some isolated parts of downtown Burlington. It takes me through the bus station, which is a pretty busy space, and it takes me through or past the new homeless shelter pods, which sometimes can be pretty quiet, but sometimes it's pretty busy around there, so I guess sometimes it's a nice walk, but yesterday I didn't have a great experience. I did end up getting followed for three blocks, yeah it was kind of freaky, but that's a personal choice that I decided to park where it was free instead of getting it passed. Yeah, I mean that's pretty, I don't really know, I couldn't have paid that when I was in high school. That's pretty ridiculous. It's just frustrating to know that the schools surrounding are paying like five dollars for a parking pass for the whole year, and we're spending, I mean I've spent 45 dollars in parking tickets this whole school year. That's really hard. Would you say that that's one of the most frustrating things about the new school? Yeah, definitely for me. It's just the parking tickets really, oh you come out to your car after a long day of school and you have a ticket on your car, it's so frustrating. I think, I wish I could remember how much it was for a pass at the old BHS, I think it was like, I want to say like 45 dollars. I was talking to other friends at other schools surrounding us about it because I was so frustrated when I heard that it was 270 dollars, and they were telling me that theirs were like 15 or 10 or five dollars, and so that was just like wow. But I had three older siblings that all went to Burlington, and a lot of them, she did the system as well I think. My mom used to work at Burlington High School, so she had a sticker, and my brother removed it from her car. Oh yeah, that's smart. I think he got in trouble one year though. Yeah, well they figured it out eventually, but like you said, you can have like a month or two of glory sometimes. So what would you say like the attitude of like the students and the teachers has been towards this transition from the old BHS to the new BHS? In the first two years, the teachers definitely were having a hard time like adjusting to the new space, and my sister graduated last year, so she was there for her junior and senior year, and I don't think she loved it. Yeah. She definitely missed the old school, and I think it was harder for her to like want to be in class there because it was just, it seemed so boring. Like when we first moved in there, all the walls were just white, there was no decoration, it didn't feel like a school, but since like we've been there for now 43 years, we've added a lot of like personality to it, and I don't know now it feels, it definitely feels like Burlington High School to me, I don't think of it as Macy's anymore. Yeah, except maybe the escalators. That's a funny point. The escalators are normally broken, so when you have a staircase, which is in the corner of the building, so it can kind of take a while to get to class if you have to get to the stairs, but everyone's always like so jealous about our escalators, but I think a lot of the kids really don't like the escalators. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like this is going to be like a proper high school experience? Like do you feel like you're going to be like satisfied with the downtown BHS? I think it's hard for me to answer this question because I'm in the tech program now, so I'm not in downtown Burlington often as other students are, but I am loving high school. I think it's, I don't know, I have nothing to compare it to, but maybe like when I go to college and I hear about other kids' high school experiences, maybe then I'll be a little bit jealous, but my friend started at Burlington her freshman and sophomore year, and then last year she transferred over to CVU. Oh yeah. And I've been hearing all about her CVU, like drama, friend groups, and all the like the fun sports, they have like, they take sports so seriously at CVU, right? And like all the games they do, and I'm just, I'm a little bit jealous because I'm, they have a huge like campus to be on during the day, and a lot of work, like a variety of classes, they just have a bigger student body too, so, and they have their fields right next to the school, so I guess that makes me a little bit jealous, but being in high school every day kind of don't have anything to compare it to. Yeah, I guess if you have like proper classes and teachers and classmates and friends, then you know the building probably isn't, doesn't impact the experience too much, but I know having the fields far away does, especially as a three-season athlete seems like maybe that would impact it a little more, but do people from other high schools, are they like jealous that you're on like near Church Street? Yes, I think that they are, but only juniors and seniors have privileges to leave campus, and because it's kind of a health, or not a health concern, a safety concern, right, but I think that a lot of the students don't really listen to those privileges, are gone anyway, they don't have that much time to leave because their lunch is only 20 minutes or less, but I don't know, most people can make it down to like Church Street, the bagel shop in back in time, so yeah, I know sometimes I'll be just like on Church Street in the middle of the day, and I'll see like high school students with their backpacks on, and I'm like, oh, they can just like wander on up here, I guess if they're an older student, are they talking to you as students at all about the new VHS, and like the, when they're building right now, and what that's going to be like, or I think it's going to be three or four years before it's done, maybe? Yes, it's going to be a while, so it doesn't really affect the soonest it'll be done in three or four years, so yeah, it's not going to affect my high school career, and there's no one else in my family, I'm the youngest, so I don't really, it's not going to affect my family really, but I haven't really heard that much about it because it's not affecting me right, but like my best friends have little siblings, and so I think that they're going to get excited to go to this new school, it looks like it's going to be fancy. Yeah, one of my friends at UVM is on the team of people who's building and sort of constructing it, and I was kind of trying to get some info out of him and be like, is it going to be like super techie and fancy and new, and it sounds like they're putting in some work and time to make it that way, which makes sense, you know, I feel like Burlington is so new, or I guess that's not the right word, but they're kind of like innovated, yeah, and they want to be like on top of things, yeah, yeah, and so I feel like the old high school in the North End didn't really reflect that at all, you didn't really feel very Burlington, so I think it's awesome that they're getting a new school, but it sounds like probably no one who's at attendance of downtown Burlington right now will get to go there, even if they're freshmen. Yeah, it's kind of a bummer, but I think that a lot of the kids at our school are loving our new downtown location. It's more central for Burlington, because there's people that come from like the super south end, is that what it's called? I don't really know. Yeah, like down by like red blocks, yeah, oh yeah. That's so far from where the old BHS was, if they didn't have a car and they had to take the bus, that would be two bus rides. Really? You'd have to make a connection at the bus stop, right? Yeah. But now that it's right next to like the bus terminal, there's no, there's no like connections that anyone would have to make, no matter where you live in Burlington, so it's a pretty direct route to school. Yeah, well I remember I lived down, not quite as far as red rocks, but in the south end and my drive to BHS would be like, would traffic like 25 minutes, like pretty far. Yeah. And you know, trying to find a ride and like someone who doesn't have to backtrack and so I think that having it somewhere more central kind of makes sense, but I mean, they have the area that they want, so. Yeah, it's a long ride to school, especially for a city, it's small. Yeah, I know. It doesn't like, it doesn't sound possible. Yeah. But just everyone's getting up and going somewhere at that time and I guess usually maybe we would make a few stops to pick up people, but still, yeah. Another change we made from moving, I don't know if it was moving schools exactly or COVID, but they started to begin school at 9 a.m. every morning instead of, I think it was like 9 05 or 8 05 or something. Yeah. So that's a big difference. It's a whole nother hour of sleep. Yeah, that's really nice. Yeah, classes are way shorter, so I think that there's more homework because of that, but you win some, you lose some. Yeah, that's nice. I guess some more specific questions that I was just curious about is where are events, like if you had a dance or a theater play go on, where would those be? Our homecoming dance was, I think, oh my gosh, where was it? I think it was at Edmonds Middle School's Jam. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so we have to be pretty resourceful and look around, but our winter ball was at the Hilton. That's right on Battery Street, so pretty close to our school, parked in the same garage and everything. And then our prom is at Champlain College, so that's going to be really pretty. We don't have pep rallies, which I think I would have loved to have, but I never experienced one, so I don't know what I'm missing out on, but it sounds right up my alley. Yeah. If we have a school and meet like assembly, which we don't really have, but maybe like one a year, we rent out the Flynn, which it's like a whole event. We have to walk over. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Like a migration. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess that makes sense. And again, it's just like there is so much around. Like, thank God it wasn't like the Macy's wasn't like where like Sears was. You know what I mean? Like, obviously that's South Burlington, but it seems like as the placeholder that it is, the location works pretty well, since there's so much that they don't have like as in like extra space for like assembly rooms where all the students can fit. Yeah, I agree. I think that the community also like has adjusted to the fact that we don't have all the things other schools have, and they're like willing to arrange dates with us to like share their spaces. Yeah. So I don't know. In a way, I think that this has made our community stronger. Yeah. And is there there's no like outside spaces where you can hang out, right? No, we have no outside spaces on campus. But I think this year, our student government is trying to work on building like an outdoor lunch space on top of our parking garage. Oh, I mean, it might not work because we don't own the parking garage. The study of Burlington does. But we have to like get that permit and then they're going to put some picnic tables up there maybe, and they wanted to put like a little greenhouse up there, I think. Yeah. Which would be cute. But cars still park up there. So it's like, how can you do that? I don't really know. Yeah. I mean, you would think that if like, I mean, there's like three parking garages in the downtown area. So I mean, like, what's that one level? Yeah. But that would be really cool. If that happened, I guess like overall, like, what's like one thing that like has surprised you that you like about the school? If it's something that we haven't already touched on her? Um, I like how the tech center is like right down the street. It makes it really helpful quick and sufficient for me to get back and forth. I also really love the location. And I think it's amazing how it's so central to Burlington so that everyone has like a fair trip to school every day. And I don't really think that the fields being far away is that big of an issue since we have free bus passes and everything. Yeah, you can still get them there at like somewhat of a reasonable time. And most kids like are willing to drive other students if they have their six months or if they care about the six months. Yeah, rule, their license. But yeah, so I don't know. I think that it's been a little bit challenging for some people. But the transition like, in total, I think it's just been a growing process. And like, as you become an adult, there's more challenges in your life. So I think this is just like adding on to that and teaching us some more skills that we can use after high school. Yeah. Do you want to like explain what the tech center is and what the different programs they offer are? Yeah, definitely. So Burlington Tech used to be in the, I think, on the side or the basement of the old high school. Yeah, I don't really know. I bet you do. It was in like an F building, which was sort of set to the side a little bit, but still connected. Okay, cool. So it was connected, but maybe a little bit of a walk. And now it's not connected because there's no space in Macy's. It's pretty small as of holding a whole school and compared to the old school. But so our new tech center is under Walgreens. That's kind of funny. But it's on the same street. It's like a block and a half down from our school. It's not that like sketchy of a walk. And since we all walk together at the same time, it's not bad at all. But I like it. It's there's no windows again. So that's kind of an issue for me. At least I get to go outside for the walk over. The health science or the program I'm doing is the health science academy. And it's just like basic anatomy one and two and then human growth and development and that stuff. But there's a really cool program. If I was like a techie kid that loved art, I'm not good at art. So that's not me. But we have a really cool like design and illustration program, which kids love. And that's in the same building. And there's criminal justice in the same building. And then an intro to health care. Yeah. And I think there's one more. It's, oh my gosh, maybe digital producing. Yeah, I'm not sure if that's right. But they make music. Oh, cool. They make movies and like stuff like that. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, I feel like they're all like super specific, which is great for kids who know what like something that they love or even if they don't know they can try it out and have that much more of an understanding of what they like or don't like before college. Yeah, definitely. And then I think there's a few more that are off of that campus. Because I think there's like an automotive. Oh, yeah, there is. Yeah. Maybe in like aircraft. Wow. I don't really know. Didn't have that one. Yeah. That one's like, close to where beta technologies is at the airport. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of a cool opportunity for kids like that. Don't want to do that. I don't know where the automotive is, though. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was we had like a whole, the old BHS had so many, like almost random facilities, like they had like an automotive shop, basically, like where you could learn to do all that. And like, we had a jewelry studio and like places, I'm trying to think of some of the other like super niche stuff that was in the school. But I mean, I'm sure that they've you guys had like a cooking class, right? Yeah. Yeah, we don't have specific classes like that because there's not space. And our art classes are pretty simple. Like, I guess you guys used to do like fine arts with like metals and pottery, maybe you had some pretty cool art classes. Yeah. Now, like after you take art one, I think your options are like nature painting. Yeah. It's pretty much the same thing as art one. Yeah. And there's no pottery or anything like that. That's definitely a bummer. But at least if people know what they want to explore, there's like digital and tech stuff, which is awesome. I mean, that's all of the questions that I have. Do you have anything else that you feel like you want people to know? Or do you feel like we covered everything? I'll say one more thing about like the lunch. Oh, yeah. Because I think that or I've heard that the old Burlington used to have like an incredible lunch setup. And everyone loved it. Yeah. Yeah. So now our setup is like the super tiny kitchen or there's it's not even a kitchen, they have to import food from another, I think elementary school and the middle schools they bring food from and they put it in warmers and then we get it and it's like lukewarm. Yeah. So there's like a salad bar. It's pretty simple, nothing extreme like our middle school salad bars used to be so much better. Yeah. But we have that and then normally we have pizza from Domino's like every single day because we have no food and it's the only thing people will eat. Yeah. So yeah, we have that, which is a good thing for us, but I think kids are getting tired of it. But that's like another reason why our location is so helpful because we don't have that amazing food for lunch every day. Kids like will just run out quickly, go downtown, hit up city market, grab a bagel, which it gets expensive. Yeah. I know that there used to be a program where students could get breakfast, lunch and dinner like while they're at school and do they still do that for students who like maybe didn't have enough money to be buying food or have food at home? They still try to do that. I don't know if the meals are as sufficient. Yeah. But the breakfast is I think baggies of food. I'm not really there in the morning, so I've never seen it. But I think they're pre-packaged bags, maybe with like a slice of bread, a juice box, an apple. Yeah. So nothing like you'd want to eat every single day. Yeah. But it's something. And then I think that there's an after-school snack, not a dinner or anything, but the snack might be like it's another pre-packaged baggie. Yeah. Which I'm not really sure what's in it, but it's nothing that would fill you for the whole night. Yeah. Well, I think that's all that I have to ask you and really, really appreciate you coming here and telling us about it. I feel like I learned a lot and it was really, really interesting to hear your perspective. Yeah. It was fun to talk about. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you. Yay. Problem. Yay. Bye. Bye.