Just like every school in Vermont, Burlington students went to remote learning in the spring due to the coronavirus pandemic.

And when in-person classes resumed this fall, Burlington adopted a hybrid model similar to what many schools are currently practicing to suppress the spread of COVID-19.

Air quality issues, however, have caused a new disruption for BHS students. The district was forced to close the high school building for the remainder of 2020 when unsafe levels of PCBs and other hazardous materials were detected in a test earlier this month.

More: Burlington High School to remain closed rest of the semester due to air quality issues

Without a single day in a classroom setting since the COVID-19 shutdown in March, Ruby Wool and Bassiru Diawara wonder if they’ll return to school this year. Or if remote learning is how they’ll finish their final year at BHS.

“It feels like we are waiting to see what happens next,” Wool said. “We are expecting the unexpected every day.”

“I hope nothing is next,” Diawara said. “We just want to get back into the school, be with our teachers … and get back to normal.”

But Wool, Diawara and many other BHS athletes do have one aspect of school life still intact: Playing sports.

“We are handling it as best we can. Luckily we have sports to connect on some level,” said Wool, a key member of the girls soccer team.

“We want to play the sports we love,” said Diawara, quarterback of Burlington’s cooperative football squad with South Burlington.

When the school building closed due to PCBs, athletic director Quaron Pinckney gave his coaches the ability to hold practices Monday through Sunday.

“For a lot of our kids, this is the only social interaction they are going to have for months,” Pinckney said. “Sports is the outlet they are going to need to get through this.”

Pinckney, in his first year in charge of athletics at BHS, has adjusted on the fly as well. Pinckney and Jeff Hayes, the school’s athletic coordinator and girls soccer coach, moved their office inside the heated snack bar at Buck Hard Field.

“The model for this year is flexibility, creativity and innovation,” Pinckney said. “That’s what we are going to stick by as a district and make sure we are going to give the kids the best possible opportunities to be out here as they navigate this remote learning process.”

Home once more to do school work, senior Skylar Clarke says the remote learning from the spring prepared her for the continued challenge of time management.

“I learned what went well and what didn’t go well,” said Clarke, a field hockey player. “Now I have a revised list of strategies that are working so far.”

According to superintendent Tom Flanagan, the district is “aggressively” searching for other locations to provide in-person classroom instruction this fall.

“We’ve looked at several sites so far and are encouraged by the response we have received, though no commitments have been made at this time,” Flanagan told the Free Press Monday in an emailed statement. “My goal is to have students learning in-person again by the time the new semester starts in January, but we are also working hard to get our students together again in-person if at all possible.” 

Wyatt Harte, a member of the cross-country running team, says a return to a classroom would benefit the students greatly.

“I like to be in school and see my teachers again. I’m not alone in that boat,” Harte said. “Some kids I haven’t seen in months. I don’t know who I don’t remember, you know what I mean?

“I think sports are sorta keeping us alive in that sense.”

Good news did arrive Tuesday for BHS athletes and the rest of Vermont’s high school sports teams. State leaders announced that competition may resume as early as Saturday.

“Honestly, we are the most pumped we’ve ever been to play a soccer game,” Wool said.

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Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter: @aabrami5.

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