Inside Burlington's Brand-New High School: What Parents Need to Know

If you've got a kid who'll eventually walk the halls of Burlington High School, get ready — they're inheriting one of the most exciting school buildings Vermont has seen in decades. We toured the new BHS/BTC campus, and it's safe to say the wait was worth it. Here's everything local parents should know, from the fun stuff to the fine print.

Mark your calendar: the district is hosting a free BHS Grand Opening & Block Party on Saturday, August 22nd, from 11 AM–2 PM — complete with food, a self-guided scavenger hunt tour of the building, and local community partners. It's the perfect chance to see everything below in person before the school year kicks off.

A Building Six Years in the Making

The Class of 2026 — students who started high school in a converted downtown Macy's and never once set foot in a "real" BHS building — just became the first graduating class to walk across the stage in the new school.

In September 2020, the old Burlington High School closed abruptly after PCB contamination was discovered in the building. For the next five years, students attended classes out of a retrofitted Macy’s store downtown while the district figured out what came next. In November 2022, Burlington voters approved a bond to fund a full rebuild on the same Institute Road site — making this Vermont's first newly built high school in decades.

Construction broke ground in 2023, and this fall, students will finally move into a building designed from scratch for how kids learn today.

The Fun Stuff: What's Actually Inside

This isn't your standard high school layout. The design leans hard into flexibility, natural light, and spaces that pull double (or triple) duty. Here's what stood out on our tour:

The heart of the building is a two-story student commons — one big, sunlit space that functions simultaneously as the cafeteria, a general community gathering spot, and the shared lobby for both the auditorium and the gym. Instead of separate hallways and waiting areas for every event, one flexible space handles all of it. Sound absorption panels and a beautiful bird motif mobile (that also absorbs sound!) are added details that really dial in the space.

Performance and athletics, upgraded:

• A 750-seat auditorium, tuned specifically for good acoustics — not an afterthought, but a stated design priority for the whole building
• A 150-seat black box theater for smaller, more intimate performances and drama classes
• An extra-large gymnasium, holding 3 full-sized basketball courts

Little touches that add up:

• A "learning commons" library designed to handle both noisy group projects and heads-down solo study in the same space
• An enclosed outdoor courtyard that helps flood nearly all 79 teaching areas with natural light and outdoor views
• Hallway "overflow" nooks with whiteboards and chairs, built specifically for breakout group work or quiet study outside the classroom
• Indoor parking for 240+ bikes, plus over 375 car spaces
• All three of the school's mirrored classroom floors follow a similar layout — good news for freshmen (and parents) still learning their way around

Safety, built in from day one: classrooms were designed with clear sightlines in mind, doors lock from the inside, and blinds let teachers block hallway views during a lockdown.

Accessibility as a design partner, not an afterthought: the district's original design featured a large, dramatic staircase as the atrium's centerpiece. After meeting with community members who have mobility impairments, the team scaled that staircase back, created more accessible gathering space, and added an additional elevator.

Sustainability: the building is fully electric, using ground-source heat pumps for all heating and cooling — no fossil fuels burned on site. Power comes from rooftop solar plus Burlington Electric Department's grid, which is already 100% renewably sourced citywide. The design team aimed for LEED Gold certification, with official certification still pending final confirmation.

A Whole Second School: The Burlington Technical Center

Attached directly to the new high school is the Burlington Technical Center (BTC) — and it's a bigger deal than a lot of parents realize, since it draws career-and-technical-education students from sending high schools across the region, not just BHS.

BTC offers ten programs of study total: a one-year "Pre-Tech Foundational" program for 10th graders, plus nine two-year programs for 11th and 12th graders (Intro to Healthcare is the one exception, also a one-year track). Programs span fields like education & leadership, healthcare, and more — all taught in half-day blocks, so students split their day between BTC and academic classes at their home high school.

One BTC program isn't actually housed in the new building at all. In late October 2025, BTC celebrated the grand opening of a separate Aviation, Career, and Technical Education Center — a fully renovated airplane hangar at Burlington International Airport. The $12 million renovation, partially funded by a $10 million federal grant, now houses the automotive, design engineering, manufacturing, and aviation programs in a hangar that was previously sitting nearly unused. It's a separate facility from the BHS/BTC building downtown, but part of the same technical center network — and its existence is exactly why the main high school build didn't need to include space for those programs, saving an estimated $20 million on the core project (more on that below).

The Budget, Briefly

Voters approved a $165 million bond in 2022. Rising labor and materials costs pushed the total project cost to roughly $204 million — but that gap was covered by outside funding (state and federal grants plus district reserves), not extra borrowing. In the end, the district only needed to borrow $159 million of the $165 million approved — $6 million under the authorized amount. Get the full story at sevendaysvt.com

The district credits ongoing, careful fiscal oversight throughout construction, plus a couple of smart early calls: keeping two alternative programs at their existing locations (saving an estimated $5.6M) and relocating the tech center's aviation program to Burlington International Airport, where the district already has a presence, instead of building new space for it (saving an estimated $20M).

Bottom Line for Burlington Parents

However young your child is now this building will likely be part of their future — and it's shaping up to be a thoughtfully designed, fiscally responsible investment in Burlington's kids. Come see it yourself at the Grand Opening & Block Party on August 22, or book a summer tour before then.

Want to see the halls, the gym, and the new commons for yourself? Check out our full video tour on the Instagram!