GUILDERLAND — What will fill the empty classrooms here?

The school board on Tuesday night heard reports from four task force committees, looking at pre-kindergarten, adult day care, incubator start-ups, and commercial rental.

“Fantastic” is how superintendent Marie Wiles described the presentations after the three-hour meeting. “They exceeded our expectations for being thorough, insightful, and enthusiastic. They crystallized ideas in a short time,” she said of the citizen volunteers and school leaders who worked together on the four committees.

The task force was set up after the school board, in a split vote, rejected scenarios from a consultant the district had hired to study the problems of declining enrollment. Last June, Paul Seversky presented a controversial report that said pupil capacity at the district’s five elementary schools is under-used by about 14 percent; the middle school is under-used by about 25 percent; and the high school is also under-used by about 25 percent.

Seversky concluded with six scenarios: One maintained the status quo and the other five proposed saving money by closing an elementary school — four would have closed Altamont Elementary and one would have shut Lynnwood. Seversky calculated this would save $1.2 million to $2 million annually.

Months of village protests followed and, in August, the school board decided to set aside Seversky’s recommendations. Rather than closing a school to solve the problem of excess space in light of declining enrollment, the task force of citizen volunteers and school leaders was charged with looking at potential alternative uses for empty classrooms.

Board members will get written reports from the task force committees in July and discuss options at their August meeting, Wiles told The Enterprise. Asked if the district is likely to pursue just one of the options or several, Wiles said, referring to the board members, “That’s up to our nine friends.”

She also said, “Some folks would like to see something in place the year after next.” That would mean having a plan by February, she said. “We’ll have to do our homework.”

Each option, Wiles explained, is to be evaluated by board members on a rubric that asks four questions: Is there a need in the community; is it feasible in a school building; does it align with the district’s mission and vision; and does it have the potential to generate income.

The district’s mission is “to inspire all students to be active life-long learners, able to achieve their highest potential in a demanding and ever-changing global community.” Wiles called this “the umbrella for all the work we do.”

Pre-kindergarten program

High quality pre-kindergarten education benefits children, schools, and communities, Mike Hill, reporting for his committee, told the board. Decades of research shows “pre-K kids do better than their peers” who did not attend preschool, he said.

The committee “moved away from a district-provided pre-K,” he said because of the high cost. The committee, instead, recommends that the district partner with a private organization. “There is more demand than supply,” Hill said.

Using the rubric, on a scale of 1 to 4, the committee rated the need and feasibility at 3 and the revenue and alignment with the district’s mission at 4. The committee found that currently the Guilderland area does not offer a full-day, enriched, secular pre-K program and said Farnsworth Middle School would be a central location.

“It would really help a lot of people,” Hill concluded.

Adult day care

Jean Guyon of Altamont told the board her committee explored two models for adult day care, ruling out the licensed medical model as unfeasible with regulatory obstacles, focusing instead on the Social Adult Day Services model, often known as SADS, “which is kind of unfortunate,” said Guyon of the acronym.

The only example the committee could find of this model in a public school setting in the United States was in Hawaii. “Sadly, the district would not underwrite a field trip,” Guyon quipped.

“There are programs in place” in the Guilderland area, she said, and services exist with vacancies. Also, Guyon said, “In order to establish a program, the town of Guilderland would have to initiate and provide 75 percent of the funding, according to Elder Law.”

Using the rubric, the committee rated need and feasibility at 2 since there are strong senior services in Guilderland and the town would have to express need. Because the model is not for profit, revenue was rated at 1. So was alignment with mission since senior service doesn’t align with the current mission but, Guyon said, “We could see the mutual benefit for our children and senior citizens in that kind of environment.”

While the committee did not recommend providing adult day care opportunities in the schools, it did recommend redefining “adult” to be 18- to 21-year-olds with learning and developmental disabilities; partnering with an outside agency, the district could get revenue while providing “daytime opportunities to an underserved population in our community.”

Incubator start-ups

A start-up business incubator is a “launching pad” for small, young businesses, Nicholas Fahrenkopf told the school board. An Altamont resident who had raised concerns about Seversky’s report and later made a first run for the school board, Fahrenkopf co-chaired the incubator start-up committee with middle school Principal Michael Laster.

The committee believes locating an incubator program in the schools “would have the potential to profoundly impact education,” said Fahrenkopf.

The committee visited the incubator program in Schodack, Fahrenkopf’s alma mater, which, he said, had 1,200 students in 2005 and has 840 today, a loss of 26 percent compared to Guilderland’s 12 percent loss in the same decade.

Using the rubric, the committee rated the need at 3.5 and the feasibility at 3. Other public schools in New York have hosted incubator programs, said Laster, and were able to navigate “the logistical and regulatory hurdles.” Calling it a “paradigm shift,” Laster said, according to the Schodack superintendent, “professional development occurs in an authentic manner,” as business entrepreneurs intersect with school staff.

The committee rated revenue generation at 3-1, explaining revenue depends on how agreements are structured. Alignment with the district’s mission earned a 4 as the committee cited “hands-on educational opportunities” and making the students more competitive.

“We’re excited about the future,” concluded Laster.

Commercial rental

Lease terms cannot exceed 10 years, unless approved by public vote or renewed by the State Education Department, said Christopher Van Woert, speaking for his committee, and rental price must reflect fair-market value. He also noted the district may be subject to local zoning ordinances and partial lack of tax exemption.

The committee looked at rental to both educational entities, like those giving dance or music lessons, and non-educational space. There’s a large amount of competing office space nearby, said Van Woert, calling it “somewhat of a glut.”

Commercial revenue-generating non-educational daytime rental in area schools doesn’t exist, he said.

Using the rubric for non-educational space, the committee rated need at 1 and feasibility at 2. Alignment with Guilderland’s mission was rated 1 and revenue was rated 2.

The outlook for educational commercial rental was brighter. Need was rated 4. “The big need was in day care,” said Van Woert. “Currently, in Guilderland, there is much more demand than supply,” he said, adding, “We’re talking about day care, not pre-K.”

Feasibility was rated 3. “School structures are ideal for day care,” the committee stated. “Morning drop-off times may need to be adjusted to avoid traffic concerns.”

Alignment with mission was rated 4 and revenue was rated 4/3. One model, Van Woert explained, was bringing an outside provider in to lease space. Another model would be a district-run day-care program for its 1,000 employees and the community. The committee believes that revenue from a district-run day-care program could far exceed the revenue raised by leasing to a private provider.

The committee recommended further exploration of the need for day care for children from birth to pre-K. Since there are a limited number of day-care providers within the district, Van Woert said, there are waiting lists. He also said that current day-care providers would like to expand and that schools offer a “move-in” environment with safety and security measures already in place.