GUILDERLAND — Tuesday was a night of applause and farewell, of gratitude and tears at the Guilderland School Board meeting.

Eleven faculty members received tenure and 25 Guilderland employees were feted on their retirement.

“I see a wealth of knowledge leave the building,” said Allan Simpson, the board’s president. “We also have new talent coming in.”

Foreign exchange students made their annual appearance before the board under the watchful eye of Karen Covert-Jones, the area representative for Youth For Understanding.

Covert-Jones told the board of her “gap year” in Belgium: “I became resilient and learned to think for myself…I had become a citizen of the world,” she said.

Now her daughter, a Guilderland senior, will take a gap year in Germany before attending the University of Pennsylvania.

One by one, each of the four exchange students told the board about their year at Guilderland; each, in turn, wept.

“This year has profoundly changed my whole life,” said Zsofi Torok from Hungary. She immediately felt at home in the school library. “I love books,” she said.

She also said, “I made the greatest friends.”

Aristea Caffaro from Italy recalled arriving at the airport. “I had been warned Americans love to hug,” she said. She praised the guidance counselors who helped her choose courses.

Judith Forschbach from Germany said, “This year was the most important and most amazing experience of my life — so far.”

She was homesick at first, she said, but teachers made her feel welcome. She thanked her chemistry teacher who brought her German Christmas cake before the holidays.

Never having played high school sports before, she enjoyed the Guilderland athletic program, which made her stronger. “No one will ever take that from me again,” she said.

She cried as she spoke of her host family. “I love them,” she said.

Nicolas Castagne, also from Germany, was the second in his family to spend a year in Guilderland; his sister had lived with Covert-Jones’s family two years ago.

He said he had played team sports before “but wouldn’t run just for the sake of running” as he had in Guilderland.

He cried as he spoke of a teacher who was “always there for me.”

Sobs and smiles emanated from the back of the meeting hall where his host family sat as he thanked them.

He concluded, “It was a great experience you cannot really capture in words.”

All of the foreign students had started learning English in elementary school, they told the board.

Among the biggest differences were the school sports in Guilderland and the accessibility of the teachers.  “The teachers are much nicer, very nice,” said Forschbach. “You can actually be friends with teachers.”

The students also said the classes at Guilderland were easier than in their home countries. Covert-Jones explained they were placed in Regents classes rather than more advanced classes both because of the language barrier and because it gave them a chance to explore “fun and creative courses.”

“All four have to repeat the year when they go home,” she said.

Feted

Among the 25 retirees were nine teachers — Charles Bender, Dana Cale, Judith Carnavos, Deborah DiGrado, Kay Dubose, Hannah Hickey, Francine Hurwit, Kimberly Hyland, and Elizabeth Whitman.

Also, five bus drivers — Kathy Andersen, Ruth Clapper, Brian Craig, Bruce Shank, and William Young Sr.; five teaching assistants — Sheri Lee Baldwin, Annemarie Kennedy Holly Marcil-Fogarty, Rebecca Morin, and Theresa Saburro; two custodial workers — Ronnie Dederick and William Siver; one school counselor — Maceo Dubose Jr.; one social worker — Louisa Lombardo; one senior keyboard specialist — Shirley Neet; and one mechanic — Patrick Mabb.

Eleven newly tenured faculty members were also honored:  Lauren Anderson, Maxfrancis Corbett, Deanne Johnson, Kimberly Kern, Frederick Kopff, Debra Kottage-Perotto, Michael Laster, Kathryn Matthews, Megan Polino, Christopher Scanlan, and Jacqulyn Vandenburgh.

GCSD to get GPS for buses

In January, a Guilderland High School student told the board he was developing a bus tracking system that would allow students to know exactly when their school bus was arriving on any given day.

What started out as a student’s hypothetical is about to become a reality.

“It spurred interest,” said Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders of the student’s project.

“That was the nudge,” said board member Gloria Towle-Hilt.

School board members were enthusiastic Tuesday about having the district get a global positioning system to track the whereabouts of its school buses.

“You would see geographically where are buses are at any point in time,” said Sanders. The system would help to manage the fleet more effectively, he said. “It’s proven, reliable technology.”

Two other nearby districts — Shenendehowa and Saratoga — are already using a GPS system for their buses, Sanders said.

“It also provides diagnostics,” said Sanders, sending a message that, for example, oil pressure is low.

The start-up cost for the system is close to $80,000, Sanders said; the state will reimburse the district about $60,000. At the same time, insurance costs would be reduced by 5 percent, he said, since the system improves driver performance.

So, the net cost would be $28,610, which will be covered by the transportation budget because fuel costs were much less than allotted for this year. “It will have no budgeting impact to start the process,” Sanders said.

The devices can be moved from bus to bus, Sanders said. “Most of the cost in subsequent years is the service part,” said Sanders; he estimated that cost at about $12,000 per year with state aid.

For an additional $8,000 — about $3,000 after state reimbursement — a feature can be added to allow parents to track the estimated arrival time for a bus from their smartphones or other computerized devices. “It updates every five seconds,” said Sanders.

The board was enthused about adding the parental-tracking feature.

Board member Colleen O’Connell said it was “an awesome idea,” stating, “It would reassure everyone.”

Other business

In other business, the board:

— Heard from superintendent Marie Wiles that close to 200 stakeholders have been invited to a June 6 session where the district will set its priorities for the upcoming year;

— Discussed the low voter turnout in the May elections, during which the budget passed with close to 72 percent of the vote.

“Only 2,000 people voted,” said O’Connell. “We had 3,600 before the tax-levy limit. We need to do something to encourage people to vote.”

Wiles said that declining participation at the polls is “a phenomenon across the state,” with decreases in the double digits;

— Agreed to a settlement with Stuyvesant Plaza on its assessment.  The shopping center had challenged in court its assessment for 2013, 2014, and 2015, and the town and school district together defended it.

The plaza had been assessed at $17.4 million; the settlement reduced that value to $13.6 million in 2013, to $13.3 million in 2014, and to $12.98 million in 2015. The refund of $287,000 in tax money covers the course of three years, said Sanders. “The board has already adopted transfers…from surplus funds this year,” said Sanders of how the refund would be covered.

Going forward, if the plaza’s occupancy rate goes up 25 percent, Sanders said, “The assessment can be adjusted.” As of July 1, 2015, there were 116, 127 square feet of leasable space occupied;

— Heard from board member Barbara Fraterrigo, who heads the policy committee, that a proposed opioid policy would allow Narcan, which is a brand name for Naloxone, a medication used to block the effects of opioids, especially in overdose. “If you save a life, it’s worth it,” said Fraterrigo;

— Heard from wiles that plans are progressing for Victory Child Care to host a pre-kindergarten program in now-vacant classrooms at three of the district’s schools — Altamont and Pine Bush elementary schools and Farnsworth Middle School;

— Agreed to appoint Benetech Inc. to serve as the third-party administrator for tax sheltered annuities for the next school year;

— Heard from Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Demian Singleton that four students had placed in the 2016 Media Arts Juried Exhibition, held at Bethlehem High School in April — junior Dylan Schmidt who won first place for his narrative drama, “The Cloudy Photograph”; senior Catherine Rafferty, who won first place for her narrative action, “The Other Side”; junior Alexis Holmes who won first place for her color photograph, “Dancing Girls”; and senior Serena LaFave, who won second place for her black-and-white photograph, “Perfect”;

— Learned that Mary Zwagerman the Guilderland Elementary School nurse, was nominated for the Salute to Nurses 2016 Nurse of the Year, an honor given to 10 Capital Region nurses;

— Heard that ninth-grader Sophie Gerchikov got an honorable mention for an essay she submitted to the New York Times Third Annual Student Editorial Contest; she wrote about harm caused by heavy backpacks and suggested digitizing school materials. Tim Myers and John Sokaris, also ninth-graders, were third-round finalists

— Learned that a student art show is running at Farnsworth Middle School through June 3;

— Heard that Ishman Yosef competed at the STEAM Exposition at Colonie High School on May 21. Singleton called Yosef’s journal “incredibly impressive”;

— Heard praise for Alicia Wein who won the 2016 Outstanding Educator Award from the Capital district YMCA. In her 18 years as a high school English teacher, she has worked with students of all abilities and pioneered the use of Chromebooks and Google Education Applications. She is co-advisor to the Gay/Straight Alliance and the Muslim Student Association; and

— Learned that senior Brad McCrary’s acrylic painting won both the People’s Choice Award and the painting category at the Fulton Montgomery Community college Juried Regional High School Exhibition.