Possible Expansion for Burke School

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Created on Thursday, 06 March 2014 19:44

Written by Katrina Floranza

BURKE- The Vermont state guidelines declare that for every number of square feet there can only be such a number of children. Due to the square footage that the Burke Town School covers, the school is close to reaching it's maximum student capacity which may lead to a possible expansion.

 Tony DeMasi, Chairman for the School Board, explains the increase number of students, "Burke is a nice town, it's a wonderful community to grow up in and live in. I think it's a number of things-- School community, town community, and what the town has to offer."

With right around 200 students enrolled at the Burke Town School, the school has already been trying to expand as much as possible with the space they have now.

Many office spaces have already been transformed into classrooms in order to provide more room for students. Some students have even been placed in teaching space. Though the number of students is rather high, school officials say there will be no need to hire more teachers at this point.

School officials are also considering different alternatives in order to provide more space needed for the students, as well as providing a nice environment for their education. One alternative that is strongly being pushed is adding three classrooms to Building Three of the town school.

DeMasi strongly supports, "That would give us three classrooms in that building and it would more than likely mean moving classes around where you would have a group of teachers. 4th, 5th, and 6th would teach together, 7th and 8th would teach together... So, we would put a group of students and a teacher in that area in that building."

While the town school is in need to expand as student enrollment may increase, other ideas have been voiced at recent meetings. One possibility that has come up in various ways is the idea of creating a new and separate school. The idea is to either create a separate middle school or to merge with other districts in order to create a new high school. However, this possibility will bring up other issues such as the need to find a facility site to house children and having transportation available for students every day to and from their different towns.

DeMasi believes that the only reason to create a separate high school would relate back to tradition. "We go back generations here. We go to LI, same with St. Johnsbury Academy. At this point, they serve us well. They're expensive, but, they do serve us well. I mean, they are the type of school that people come from all over the world to go to and we are lucky enough to have it in our back yard."

Any expansion that the school plans to do in the near future will come directly from the school's saved funds and from taxpayers as well. School officials say looking into applying for grant money may be considered if necessary.