GUILDERLAND — Classes start on Sept. 4 for the new school year in Guilderland as the district is led by a new superintendent.

Daniel Mayberry, the 11-year superintendent of Keene Central — an Adirondack district with 166 students — was appointed in May to replace Marie Wiles who had served as Guilderland’s superintendent for 14 years.

Mayberry told the school board members at their Aug. 12 meeting that it was his eighth day on the job.

“Everyone in the district has been warm and welcoming,” he said, singling out Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Regan Johnson for praise — “helping me get up to speed.”

Johnson had filled in during the gap left between Wiles’s departure and Mayberry’s start.

“You did a great job as interim superintendent,” said board President Blanca Gonzalez-Parker to Johnson. “It was awesome.”

Gonzalez-Parker, who works in the health field, was re-elected as president in July, at the board’s re-organizational meeting. 

Katie DiPierro, a special-education teacher, bested Rebeca Butterfield, a pediatrician, in the run for vice president.

Mayberry noted that summer school ended this week as did the extended school year program for special-needs students and the summer recovery program at the middle school, which includes students learning English as a new language.

Although classes don’t start until Thursday, Sept. 4, staff will come to school on Tuesday, Sept. 2, and orientation sessions will be held for kindergartners, and new middle school and high school students.

For the first day of school, seniors dress for a theme, student representative Paarth Sarecha told the board. Sarecha, who is an officer for the Class of 2026, said that the class was polled for theme suggestions and then polled again to choose among the suggested options.

An assistant principal had emailed, Sarecha reported, writing that objections were raised from the school board and from officers in the district’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee over seniors dressing as rappers or pro golfers.

Sarecha said that dressing as a rapper was never suggested as a theme. Rather, he said, one of the options was “rhyme with no reason.” He explained that would involve “you and a buddy dressing as two things that rhyme but with no reason.” He gave “patriotic and aquatic” as an example. An example that was presented to students was “napper and rapper,” he said.

“And so, that’s where the controversy came up because I think it got miscommunicated that we’re saying, ‘Dress like a rapper.’ But it really wasn’t like that at all ….,” said Sarecha. “We weren’t endorsing people dressing like rappers for the first-day-of-school theme at all.”

With “dress like a pro golfer,” he said, “Our intention, again, wasn’t to stereotype golf players … Our intention was simply to just have something that was simple for many students to follow because it’s easy for a lot of students to grab their hands on a polo shirt and khakis.”

The golf garb, he said, is “winning by a landslide” with more than 35 percent voting for that theme among the eight or nine options.

Sarecha concluded that the intention was “never to really discriminate or kind of have like these profiling on these different groups of people.”

Gonzalez-Parker clarified that the board itself had not raised concerns; rather, people had brought concerns to the board.

“It’s not a school-sponsored activity,” said Mayberry. “It’s a student-sponsored activity.”

Toward the end of the meeting, Gonzalez-Parker said to Sarecha, “Thank you, Paarth, for keeping us up to date on the decision-making process that the Class of 2026 officers followed in coming up with a theme, etc. It sounds like it was actually a lot of hard work so thank you very much for explaining that to us.”