State Rejects Burlington Pitch To Renovate High School (Again)

BURLINGTON, MA -- Stop us if you've heard this one before....that has to be what Burlington School officials were thinking after the state rejected the statement of interest it submitted to renovate the high school for the seventh straight year. The school system has been trying to get the Massachusetts School Building Authority to back plans to upgrade the heating and air conditioning systems and build new science labs since 2011.

"The conflict is the MSBA only has so much funding and revenue was down this year. They set their criteria for approvals, and we did not meet it," Superintendent Eric Conti told the school committee this month when he announced the rejection.

To be fair, the MSBA only moved forward on 12 of the 80 submitted school building projects when it met last week. Conti said one of the reasons for the rejection is that the school, which was built for 2,000 students, only has enrollment of about 1,000.

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Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).