Vermont
'The people make the place.' Burlington High School seniors graduate from Macy's
During the summer of 2020, PCBs, a class of toxic chemicals, were detected at elevated levels throughout Burlington High School, and the state condemned the campus. After a few months of planning, district officials came up with a solution that made international news.
In just ten weeks, they converted a vacant department store in the Queen City’s downtown into a makeshift high school.
Now, four years later, the students who first stepped onto the escalator in the former Macy’s building as freshmen are graduating. And while attending class in a defunct department store may sound pretty dystopian, for BHS’s class of 2024, that was just high school.
“Obviously it’ll be different than other people’s high school experiences,” said BHS senior Elliot Laramee. “But like, for me, I don’t really feel, like, bad that I ended up here. Because I just never experienced anything different than this.”
It’s not that students at BHS aren’t keenly aware of how strange their high school experience has been. It would be hard to miss all the reminders of their temporary school’s former life. There’s a giant escalator in the middle of the building — which students said is often broken — and sports trophies are on view in former jewelry display cases. Some of the old signage is still up from when things like handbags and jeans were on sale, and students eat at the so-called “Michael Kors Cafe.”
Lola Duffort
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Vermont Public
But over time, they’ve gotten used to it. Brooks DeShaw said at first it was strange to go to school in a place where she once went Christmas shopping. Classrooms didn’t have doors when students first arrived, and the walls didn’t go all the way to the ceiling.
“But I feel like I’ve adapted to it,” she said.
If Burlington’s seniors have adapted to their makeshift home — which students will be attending for at least two more years — it’s also partly because the building has adapted to them. Classrooms do now have doors, and many of the partitions that section off classes go all the way to the ceiling.
Staff and students alike also often talk about something that might, on first blush, appear pretty trivial — the decorations on the walls. Rowen Clarke still remembers when staff first put up these big vinyl decorations that say “Burlington,” in all capital letters, at the top of the escalator.
“I was pretty hype when they put those up. I thought they were, like, really cool,” he said. “Because they were the first, like, ‘Burlington’ thing we had. So yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. And added a lot of schoolness to the school.”
In the intervening years, student artwork, posters and athletic banners have accumulated on the walls.
“It’s unfortunate, and we can, like, laugh about the Michael Kors cafe, but you know, the lunch ladies are there every day with a smile, serving food. There is that. The people make the place.”
Medea Daly
Medea Daly recently took pictures for a project in different places throughout the school, in the exact same spots as she had when the downtown campus first opened. She said she was struck by how lifeless the building seemed then. And in general, Daly said she’s thankful for all the work staff and faculty have put into making the building feel like a home.
“It’s unfortunate, and we can, like, laugh about the Michael Kors cafe, but you know, the lunch ladies are there every day with a smile, serving food. There is that,” she said. “The people make the place.”
Students have also leaned into the absurdity of their situation. In the fall of 2021, BHS seniors asked Lauren McBride, the principal at the time, if they could hold their own Macy’s Day Parade on the Friday before Thanksgiving break. She agreed. And every year since, seniors have kept up the tradition, complete with balloons, costumes and themed floats built from rolling janitorial carts.
“It’s honestly a blur because I’m wearing earplugs because the drums are so loud, and I don’t know anything that’s going on behind me,” said senior Vivian Halladay, who has been in the drumline every year. “It’s one of my favorite things we have at the school. It’s so much fun.”
Students were matter-of-fact about the very real drawbacks of going to school in a building that was never meant as a space for learning. There basically are hardly any windows, for example, and the fluorescent lighting can make it hard to concentrate — particularly if you’re recovering from multiple concussions.
“Trying to go back to learning in a school where there’s really, really harsh lighting, and just getting crippling headaches is not a good thing,” Halladay said.
But on the whole, students said that as much as they liked to joke about how bizarre their high school years had been, it had also helped bind them together.
“It’s not been, you know, great or perfect, but it’s been — it’s been very good,” Halladay said.
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Locals can now pull up, cool off and chow down at Morristown’s newest roadside destination, Gondolas Snack Bar. Owner Louis Ferris opened the creemee and burger spot on June 7 at 3107 Route 15.
A real estate professional with experience working in commercial kitchens, Ferris wants his new business to be ingrained in the community. After the former occupant of the spot, Mountain View Snack Bar, closed during the pandemic, he saw an opportunity to re-create his best memories of Vermont summers and give them back to people, he said.
“I’m just so excited to bring everyone together here,” Ferris said. “Our customers stay and hang out long after they’re finished with their creemees.”
Gondolas whips up triple-scoop cones in flavors such as maple, tutti-frutti and cotton candy, plus smash burgers, fries and onion rings. Ferris wants the snack bar to be authentic, which to him means locally sourced ingredients, such as creemee mix from Kingdom Creamery of Vermont, and live music on Saturday nights.
“We’d love to see anyone from Little League sports teams or friends having a reunion here,” Ferris said. “We just want to be that fun place for the community to get a treat.”
Gondolas operates daily from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. until October. Find out more at gondolassnackbar.com.
Operators at a South Burlington wastewater treatment plant first noticed something strange Friday morning. A tank was filling with bubbles, like someone had filled it with laundry detergent.
“It looked like a white bubble bath,” said Bob Fischer, the water quality superintendent for South Burlington. “I could tell it was firefighting foam, but I didn’t know what kind.”
Fischer was right. The night before, 800 gallons of highly concentrated firefighting foam had spilled over the floor of the Vermont Army National Guard aircraft hanger in South Burlington.
It gathered in the landing gear of a Black Hawk military helicopter, before some 150 gallons flowed down a drain and entered the town’s wastewater system, according to National Guard estimates. The material reached a nearby pump station before entering the water treatment plant, which sits next to the Winooski River.
This type of firefighting foam is called aqueous film-forming foam or AFFF. It’s used for fires that involve flammable liquids, like burning jet fuel. The state of Vermont has banned its use because it contains relatively high concentrations of manufactured chemicals known as PFAS, which have been linked to cancer, liver problems and a myriad of other health issues and can be toxic even in tiny doses.
The Vermont National Guard hadn’t released the material for years — it wasn’t even supposed to be used in the case of a fire.
“If the fire suppression system discharged, all it would discharge is just water — we essentially bypassed the AFFF tank,” said Col. Jacob Roy, the construction and facility management officer at the National Guard. “We realized that the risk to the environment was pretty significant, and we did not want a chance having either a purposeful or accidental release.”
Vermont Army National Guard
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Courtesy
Roy suspects the spill Thursday night was a mechanical failure in their containment system. He said there’s been no evidence of a fire.
Since Friday morning, contractors have been out every day cleaning and testing the National Guard facility, the sewer lines, the pump station and the wastewater treatment plant. Roy expects the facility to be open to staff by Wednesday morning.
And test results from the Winooski River should come back within a week.
In the grand scheme of things, a release of around 150 gallons — about the size of a hot tub — is pretty small within the bigger river system, said Matt Chapman, who directs waste management and prevention at Vermont’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
“It’s good for perspective purposes to appreciate that on a normal day in the Winooski River, the river has a flow rate of about 5,000 gallons per second,” he said.
April McCullum
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Vermont Public
While he’s not overly concerned about contamination in the river, he said what’s less straightforward going forward is how to properly dispose of the 650 gallons of foam that’s been collected. The EPA released interim guidance this year that includes incineration, storage in landfills and underground injection, but none of the options are good.
“I think it’s fair to say there’s no guidance from EPA,” Chapman said.
“One of the reasons why we still have this product over the years onsite, [is] because it is not an easy product to get rid of,” echoed Roy.
He said the disposal method will ultimately depend on the concentration of PFAS found in testing and directed further questions about the disposal process to the National Guard’s waste disposal contractor, Republic Services.
A spokesperson for the company said they operate several hazardous waste landfills across North America, which are engineered to safely and responsibly manage this type of waste.
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North Country junior Sabine Brueck has been selected as Vermont’s top high school girls track and field athlete for the 2024 season, Gatorade announced Tuesday morning.
Brueck is the second athlete in program history to receive the award, which recognizes outstanding athletic excellence, high academic achievement and exemplary character.
The 5-foot-7 Brueck swept the 100- and 300-meter hurdles at the Division I state meet earlier this month, while also taking second in triple jump and third in long jump. Then at the New England championships, Brueck broke her own state record in the 300 hurdles (43.90 seconds) to nab third. Last week, she also reset the Vermont decathlon state record with a winning total of 5,755 points.
More: State records fall at 48th annual Vermont decathlon championships
Brueck has volunteered locally as a youth track, basketball and soccer coach and has also donated her time as a summer camp counselor, the Gatorade release said.
“Sabine has excelled in a variety of events this year,” Mount Mansfield coach Bill Eschholz said in a statement. “From the sprints to the hurdles to the jumps, she is, without a doubt, the best all-around athlete in track this year.”
Brueck has maintained an A average in the classroom. She will begin her senior year of high school this fall.
As part of Gatorade’s commitment to breaking down barriers in sport, every player of the year also receives a grant to donate to a social impact partner.
To learn more about the Gatorade Player of the Year program, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com.
Become a member of the Vermont Varsity Insider Facebook group at https://bit.ly/2MGSfvX.
Contact Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter: @aabrami5.
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