Opinion

Schools are constantly looking for ways to improve learning, reduce stress, and support student success. One of the best ways our school can do that is to continue using a rotating schedule. The rotating schedule has 5 periods where 2 periods a day are dropped. The next day the 2 classes that were dropped are in the schedule. It creates flexibility, reduces the impact of absences, and helps students learn at the time of day when they perform the best. When students’ time is organized in a smarter way, everyone benefits.

The current Rotating schedule at BHS wasn’t always like this. It’s the result of multiple years of work. This is after the latest recommendations from the schools last visit from NEASC (New England Association of Schools and Colleges).

Not all students learn the same way, and not all classes are best learned at the same time of day. Research from Unlocking Time shows that students tend to perform better in certain classes depending on what time those classes occur. For example if a student does better in English class at noon time, every day he will get a fair chance to have it around noon time. A rotating schedule makes this fair because each student every day will have a good chance at a certain class falling at a certain time slot so they learn better. 

Another reason the rotating schedule is perfect is that students stay engaged more. Students may not have a certain class the next day, so it’s important to stay engaged in that class.  This is so you don’t forget the Classwork for the class over a break. 

Devil’s Advocate reporters sent out a survey and 13 people answered. 69.2% of people said they liked the Rotating Schedule. 

“The Rotating Schedule allows for me to stay engaged more because I know I may not have a certain Class the next day,” Dylan Reda, BHS Junior, said. 

Another reason is that absences are unavoidable, appointments, religious observances, illnesses, and family responsibilities happen. But the way a school organizes time affects the impact these absences have. According to UConn’s Around the Block analysis, students in rotating schedules are less likely to miss the same class repeatedly because the order of periods changes each day. That means a student with a weekly appointment isn’t doomed to fall in one subject. This rotation also helps with partial absences, such as late arrivals or early dismissals, because missing one period doesn’t always mean missing the same class every time. This structure is simply more forgiving and more equitable.

Some argue rotating schedules are confusing and hard to remember, especially for freshmen adjusting to high school for the first time. It’s true that the first few weeks can be a challenge, as students try to learn the pattern and figure out what comes next.

While the adjustment period is real, it doesn’t last long. Students quickly adapt to predictable rotation patterns, especially when supported with tools like posted calendars, reminders, or color-coded schedules. Once they get the rhythm, they benefit from improved engagement, more balanced workloads, and fewer repeated absences. The short-term confusion is far outweighed by the long-term academic advantages.

To support student engagement, achievement, and well being, our school should continue using the rotating schedule. However, there are small improvements that could make it better. For example, the school could provide clearer rotation calendars for freshmen, and send automated schedule reminders every day. Another way the school could do this is by announcing the day's class periods on the morning announcements. These adjustments would help students transition smoothly while preserving a system that clearly works. 

A rotating schedule doesn’t just organize our day, it supports our success. By keeping and improving this system, our school can help every student learn, grow, and perform at their best.

People should be more supportive and care more about the BHS building fund. Burlington High School has been around for at least 86 years,  it's only reasonable for the building to need repairs and revamps throughout the years. Although this may be true, the school received little repairs throughout the years, leaving it extremely damaged. 

The BHS building committee has been working on this project for 3 years now and they have been working hard and diligently to help Burlington high school students have a better school. The cost of this project’s planning alone was $334,769,880, just to all go to waste. Students don’t want to come to a school where they’re miserable, right?

First off, the building project was one of Burlington's most costly investments. Why put so much money and time into a project for it to not get voted on. According to Chris Flaherty of Burlington Cable Access Television, “The proposed BHS Building Project, being the biggest dollar-amount ever before the town, has been the subject of debate among the community since its inception.”

Second, BHS students have been in the same building since 1996 with minimal changes, students believe  many things still need to be fixed and updated. Zach Titus, student voice of the BHS building committee, says he wants to see a positive change in the building that will accommodate all students. 

Some Burlington residents argue that the uprise in taxes would be an inconvenience to many people. The taxes would be raised to a 5.0% interest rate, that being for a term of 25 years which is the guaranteed maximum price provided by Consigli Construction. 

Although taxes would be raised in Burlington, students desperately need an updated high school. Also if the town waits any longer the renovations would only become more expensive, therefore the interest rate on taxes would also increase.You might think that the tax raise is a lot currently but it will only benefit the building project in the the long run

We ask you to encourage town committee members to think about the outcome of the election and how it would be worth it to benefit the Burlington residents who attend or plan to attend BHS in the future.

Zach Titus also stated in an interview that he hopes that with MSBA funding we can see a new project come into fruition in 10-20 years.

If you ask almost any student at Burlington High School how they feel about school lunch, you’ll probably get the same reaction. A shrug, an eye roll, or a quiet, “yeah, it’s not that great.” For years, students have learned to expect meals that feel repetitive or just not satisfying. Lunch is supposed to give us enough energy to make it through the rest of the day, but a lot of the time it does the opposite. When so many students walk out of the cafeteria still hungry it’s a sign, something needs to change. 

Students have been clear about what the problems are. 

“Half of the time the school lunches are dry and kind of taste like leftovers… tastes processed,” Lyla Kuhn, BHS senior, said. 

These are not uncommon opinions. You can hear versions of these complaints in almost every lunch period. 

Another student, Manny Guerrior, said, “Some lunches don’t deserve to be lunches. Why are we having breakfast as lunch? And the portions are like we are rationing—it doesn’t make sense.” 

Because the students do not like the free lunches BHS offers, parents often end up spending unnecessary money buying their kids extra food to bring to school because of the poor quality of school lunches. According to an analysis by Deloitte examining three years of lunch-related food prices, the average daily cost of common brown bag lunch options has risen to $6.15. Compared to the start of the last school year, packing a lunch is expected to cost about 3% more on average, a rate slightly higher than overall food at home inflation. Over the course of a school year, that becomes a real financial strain, especially for families with more than one student. This increase in cost should be a huge wake up call for Burlington High School to spend more money and effort into changing the school lunches for the better.

Better lunches are not just about taste; they could actually support learning. Further showing the issue goes beyond taste and directly affects focus, energy, and academic performance. Research from the Brookings Institution found that students with higher quality school lunches scored slightly higher standardized tests, roughly a 4% increase. It is not a dramatic jump, but it is enough to show that wasting real, nutritious food during the school day makes a difference. When students feel better, they learn better. And if Burlington wants to keep a stronger academic reputation, this is a simple place to start.

Some people argue that updating the lunch program would be too expensive or complicated. The reality is that families already spend money because the school lunches are not being eaten. Improving the quality would add a new cost and it would replace an existing one. If the food tasted good and students trusted what was on their plates, more of them would actually choose the free meal instead of bringing their own. In the long run, that saves money, reduces waste, and helps everyone.

Burlington High School can not keep settling for lunches that students avoid, throw out, or joke about. If the school truly cares about student health, learning, and fairness, then the meals we serve should reflect that. It’s time for the administration to take meaningful steps. Overall, better vendors, fresher meals, and portions that actually make sense. Change won’t happen in a week, but it has to start somewhere, and it should start now.

Students drive Dangerously and Aggressively in the student parking lot  as they attempt to rush out of the parking lot avoiding the traffic.

by Tayah Fulciniti and Zoe Tzovaras 

The Burlington High School student parking lot takes way too long to exit leading to traffic hazards for new drivers. The rush to leave the parking lot causes aggression in the parking lot and is an accident waiting to happen. BHS needs a new parking lot with multiple exits to clear up traffic and prevent aggressive driving.

A large population of students at BHS drive to school with 105 students who have purchased parking passes. Everyday at three o’clock, students rush out of the building to the parking lot to get home from school quickly and efficiently. Students will run down the hill, then out into the parking lot just to beat the traffic. 

According to Ms.Northdrop there are roughly over 150 parking spots in the student parking lot. This year even though 105  purchased parking passes have been purchased, there are a large portion of students who haven’t purchased passes but still park at the school. This makes the exact number of students driving unclear.

The student parking lot may have many parking spots but with the large number of students driving, many drive recklessly to get out of school on time.

“I feel unsafe because people are driving recklessly and there is only one exit. Also I feel rushed to avoid traffic when leaving school so that  I don’t leave too late” Said Amanda Brouady, a current BHS Senior. “I hate it because I have to walk in the freezing cold all the way from the gym after practice because I can’t park near the gym, it’s very inconvenient and not fair”.

Having only one exit in the student parking lot creates a large traffic jam. Often it takes students at least 15 minutes to get out of the parking lot. Lines of traffic build up within the lot making it difficult for students to pull out of spots. 

Additionally, the location of the exit and the fact that there is only one exit just adds to the chaos, especially when there are teachers, parents and buses trying to leave all at the same time. So when trying to make an exit out of the parking lot students have to wait for someone to let them go or try to nudge their way out, which is not the safest option. 

On the other hand it may be hard to fix some of these problems due to the location of the parking lot now. Such changes that may seem simple could be very hard in the future, because the parking lot has to still stay close to the school without affecting the actual school building. In fact even the cost of the new parking lot may be a lot if there is not enough funds to cover the construction.

Nevertheless the parking lot definitely needs some work whether it is a new exit or a new format for the parking lot to follow. A change for the parking lot will most certainly be worth it, saving lots of time not just for students but for everyone trying to leave the school building at 3:00.

The Securly pass system was piloted in Burlington Highschool at the beginning of quarter 4 of the 2024-2025 school year. When the idea was first introduced to students many were resilient towards the idea of it. The original pass system would give students 5 passes a day and flag teachers when students were out of the room for more than 6 minutes. Almost everyone came to an agreement that this pass system seemed quite ridiculous but the middle school had been successful using this system, so the school stuck with it. 

Nowadays, many students are fed up with the pass system. 8 in 10 students answered on a school survey that they don’t find the pass system useful at all. The passes are now cut down to just 3 a day from the previous 5. They are not only for bathroom trips either, they count for seeing other teachers, attending meetings with counselors, and even filling up a water bottle at the fountain. 

This system isn’t free though, the Securly pass website claims that schools pay about $1-5 per student registered in the pass system. In the 2024-2025 school year, there were 949 high school students registered in Burlington. That means that the school spends between $949-$4745 a year per student on the pass system. Pricing is generally on a subscription basis, with schools needing to pay annually. The cost can range from $1 to $5 per student per year for the basic version, though this can increase if additional features are required

 If we eliminated the pass, we could get that money going towards other things for students, like school necessities or even sports equipment. 

The issue here isn’t always the students' fault though. It is also the teachers that forget to either accept passes or make students fill out passes to leave the room. In the same student survey, about 7 out of 10 students answered that teachers often forget to end or start students' passes throughout the school day. This causes much difficulty and disruption for both students and teachers. 

The style of how they are meant to be filled out doesn’t really support the viewpoint of supporters because the high school is covered with cameras where if an event were to occur, cameras would be able to tell who was in the bathroom at that time of the incident. Also without the factors of cameras, if a teacher doesn’t start or end a student's pass then it should be a lot harder to track down misbehaving students.

We can see the few benefits of the Securly Pass, such as monitoring students who make bad decisions such as skipping class and causing issues in the halls, but the majority of the time, students are doing the right thing and should be trusted with the responsibility to do so. If anything of disruptive manner occurs, once again, the cameras are there to detect the cause, and teachers are monitoring the halls as well. Students should be given the right to leave the classroom without a pass system.   

To sum up, the Securly Pass System is impotent to actually enhance the monitoring of students because of the fee for the app, the countless times that there have been errors starting or ending the passes, the waste of time it consumes, and the unhappy result of both students and teachers.  

From five classes in the school day to sports, clubs, and hours of homework at night, high school could not be a busier time. Students’ schedules are packed, and their mental health suffers from late bedtimes and minimal rest. The solution is simple: Freshman and sophomores should have more than one study hall per rotation to make room for the many activities and responsibilities that fill their days. Upperclassmen at Burlington High School (BHS) are given significantly more study periods, and the benefits for them are clear. 

To start, juniors and seniors are given far more study halls than freshman and sophomores. According to the BHS Program of Study, freshmen and sophomores are required to take a full semester of both gym and health, while juniors take only one semester of gym and seniors take one semester of health. This leaves upperclassmen with more time for study halls during the other semester. In fact, in the opposite semester, upperclassmen have a study period as one of their regular classes, meaning they have that class five times out of seven days. As a result, they are able to balance heavy workloads and responsibilities, such as applying to colleges and taking high level classes. 

However, freshmen and sophomores need this study time just as much as the upperclassmen do. The challenges of new and advanced classes, such as honors and Advanced Placement (AP) classes and the transition to high school take a toll on young students. Whether it is time to complete homework, study, or merely time to gather ideas and prepare for the rest of the week, having more study halls would be crucial for underclassmen.

Next, students are inundated with homework, and with the insufficient amount of study time in the school day, their mental health pays the price. According to a study conducted at Stanford University, “56 percent of the [high school] students considered homework a primary source of stress.” With more than half of students considering homework at this level, it is clear that there is not enough time to complete homework, resulting in detrimental effects to mental health for teenagers.  

For many schools, including BHS, sophomores can start taking AP classes, which require lots of homework and preparation for exams. To add, freshmen enrolled in honors classes are held to high expectations, a significant change from middle school. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, “between 1980 and 2002, the percentage of sophomores spending more than 10 hours per week on homework increased from 7 to 37 percent.” Students are overloaded with homework and the need to study. Additional study halls would allow time to complete homework during the day, allowing students time to pursue voluntary activities, like community service, clubs, or sports, during the evening.

While it is true that students are not always productive during study time, it is the student’s choice to decide how to spend study time. Occasionally, students get off track during study halls by talking with friends or going on their phones. However, this does not mean that study hall serves no purpose. It can be equally as important to take a minute to relax and refresh during a busy day as it is to complete homework, and may mark the difference between disorganization and preparedness. Overall, study halls are a crucial aspect in the learning process for high school students by offering choice, freedom, and time to reflect on needs. 

To conclude, freshman and sophomores face an immense amount of stress from adjusting to the many responsibilities with high school. It is essential that BHS considers increasing the amount of study halls for underclassmen. By reducing health or gym classes from four days per cycle to three, students could gain an extra study period. This would allow them to balance academics with extracurricular activities, sports, and ultimately, would improve mental health. After all, high school should be remembered as a time of personal growth and new experiences, not stress.

The town of Burlington needs to persist and try again for a new and improved high school building. The current building is not in a fair safety condition for the students. According to the BHS Building Project website, the current building lacks life safety systems, like exit paths, fire/lock down alarms, and ventilation. It also requires a new and functioning HVAC system. Students need this new system so the building can be heated and get access to new air ventilation. The building is also lacking ADA compliance which stands for Americans with disabilities act. in areas like ramps, doors, lockers, sinks, and classrooms. We also struggle with security features, like fire alarms and lock down drills. With the new building, the science classrooms will have better ventilation helping to clear any gasses from chemicals used during labs. 

A new building would also be better for students academically. There would be improved science classrooms, offering better spaces to do things like labs, as well as larger classrooms for better student experience. There would also be more opportunities for hands-on working for students to be able to learn outside of the classroom. The new school would also have a layout allowing for easy flow while switching between classrooms. 

Furthermore, waiting longer could cause more problems, and eventually cost more than if the project was done now. According to a town council meeting, the mechanical systems within the school are approaching the end of their life span. The whole project itself is very long and waiting could mean that systems fail during the process. Things like parts of the boiler room have already been replaced in the past, and if they were to break they would be very disruptive to the building. If repairs to the building had to be done, they would be completed by around 2032.

Some could argue that because the project will be paid for by taxpayers, this would mean that families and citizens throughout the town are paying more money during a time when other town renovations are happening. 

While it is true that taxes will go up, the high school will have to be replaced at some point, whether that be now or later. Fox Hill is also being replaced, meaning that taxes will go up; however according to the Fox Hill Building Project website,  it is partially being paid for by the MSBA. Burlington High School has applied for the MSBA for many years and has not been given the funding. While both Fox Hill and the police station are currently in the process of being built, the police station most likely will not be paid off for another 27 years, which will be after the high school has been dealt with. This means that holding off from building won’t benefit tax payers since the police station will continue to need funding. 

The town needs a new high school soon so that the coming high schoolers don’t have to deal with failing mechanics within the school. Make the right decision and help support the cause, so that the future students can enjoy their building and time in high school.

 The Massachusetts State Senate has passed a bill to ban cellphone use in all public K–12 schools statewide. Was this an effective decision for the town's educational benefit? 

To begin with, According to Harvard school of university “In her study of over 1,200 students, she found no differences in mental health, academic performance, or well-being between schools with strict bans and those without. While restrictions cut down on in-school phone use, they didn't meaningfully reduce students' overall daily screen time.” University of Birmingham Professor Vicky Goodyear says. Massachusetts should not have banned cell phones in schools, because schools teaching students how to safely use technology can benefit generations as technology advances. 

 Also, studies show fewer incidents, such as cyberbullying, will occur if teens are taught how to effectively use their phone instead of avoiding it during school hours. With the state’s cell phone ban, students are unable to use cell phones during school hours. This also means that students are not taught how to safely and responsibly use cell phones. 

 According to The Monique Burr Foundation for Children, 1 in 3 students have been cyberbullied. The school can teach students how to safely use technology; after all Burlington School’s goal is to keep students safe; socially, emotionally and physically. A big part of a student's life is cellphones. If students are forced to avoid them, incidents including cyberbullying are practically inevitable for students because they are not taught how to use them wisely. School is a great and available tool to help students learn about the dangers of the technical world and teach them how to navigate around it. 

In addition cell phones can be important in students' lives, especially teenagers who are learning what works best for them and how to stay organized. For this generation it can be used in acting as digital planners like Reminder, Notes, and Calendar, Research hubs such as the Internet and other apps and communication devices for classmates, teachers, parents. 

So, the law should not be passed because students who use apps like Calendar or Reminder on their phones to stay organized and turn in their assignments more consistently and feel less stressed about deadlines. Phones are used in a regular student's everyday life, if they use their phone to remind themselves about school and to ultimately stay organized they would be less likely to forget something that can enhance their academic performance. 

Additionally, students are still distracted even without their phones. Students just wait for the bell to ring so they can just run to their phones and use it. Letting students keep their phone on them, but put away would give students a safer feeling of not having to worry about where their phone is, when or even if they can access it during an emergency.

Futhermore, According to Harvard school of university, they talk about how students are distracted even without their phones. This shows students can also check their assignments or any alert notifications from their teachers on their phones so they don’t need to stop, open their backpack and pull out their iPads to check it; they can just check it on their phone if they have the right to use it in class. This wouldn’t cause a distraction, rather it would be beneficial for students. 

Some might say cell phones are distractions and cause students’ attention span to decrease. 

However, a complete state wide ban was not necessary. Towns should be able to decide a ban if they see any issues in their own school. Some schools can see distractions and small attention spans, while other schools can see no issue at all until the state makes it one. 

To conclude, students can use their phones to check something like their parents’ notification, class notifications, and if they want to call anyone; students can use their phones when they are done with all of their work and also they can use it if they need any learning technology.  We want Massachusetts to create a clear policy that lets students use their phones, responsibility instead of banning them completely. Schools should teach responsible phone use, set reasonable guidelines, and trust students to make good choices.