GUILDERLAND — If school buildings here could write the quintessential back-to-school essay on “What I Did Last Summer,” they’d have quite a tale to tell.

This was the first of two summers to complete work on a $17.3 million project to upgrade infrastructure at Guilderland’s seven schools and to improve safety, security, and technology systems.

“We got done what was slated and accelerated some — we did more roofing and more paving,” said Clifford Nooney, the district’s building and grounds supervisor who is overseeing the project.

“Cliff has done an outstanding job,” said Neil Sanders, Guilderland’s assistant superintendent for business. He also praised the district’s custodial and maintenance staff, who had everything ready in time for classes to start on Tuesday.

“People worked hard and it was ready to go,” said Nooney.

Although, Sanders said, “Unanticipated things pop up, we had contingency money built into the project…We’re doing well with the budget. We haven’t had any surprises.”

Several school board members, along with Sanders, Nooney, and Superintendent Marie Wiles, toured the buildings last week as workers finished projects.

The tour started at Guilderland High School, which has had some roofs, floors, and windows replaced.

The high school, with three boiler rooms, has two new high-efficiency boilers; four old boilers remain. They will be used as backup in case one of the new boilers malfunctions or if it is very cold, said Nooney.

“Natural gas costs should decline,” said Nooney, adding on a day when temperatures reached 90, “It’s hard to believe but, soon enough, we’ll be needing boilers.”

Musicians will keep their cool this fall. New heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems have been installed in the practice rooms and in several adjacent offices used by music teachers.

“We put half-a-dozen students in a tiny room,” said Nooney, explaining the need for the systems. Most of the school is not air-conditioned.

At Farnsworth Middle School, new curbing has been placed in front of the main entrance “to re-direct parent drop-off traffic to the parking-lot side,” said Nooney. “This creates a much safer crosswalk for students,” he said.

Parents were made aware of the new configuration on the district’s Facebook page and through the School News Notifier.

Nooney observed the traffic patterns at the start of school on Tuesday and said, “There’s still a little mix.”

Throughout the district, security was tightened at school entrances. The school board made this a priority project to be completed in the first summer of work.

Formerly, visitors to Guilderland schools would be buzzed in through a school’s exterior doors, and then be admitted to the school where they would be greeted by a monitor. Now, there’s an extra step.

“You still get buzzed in from the outside doors,” said Nooney, “but the monitor station is enclosed. We control the inner set of doors.”

This means, if some problem were detected with a visitor, he or she would be contained between the two sets of doors.

At the middle school, for example, the problematic visitor would be confined in the lobby rotunda. The monitor is behind a window of shatterproof and bullet-resistant glass. “We added an escape,” said Nooney. A door was added in back, leading to the school’s courtyard.

“We added an egress, a door so she’s not trapped in there with that person,” said Nooney.

Each of the district’s seven schools has a similar configuration. This involved the most change at Guilderland Elementary School, where the principal’s office was swapped with the nurse’s office.

“We flip-flopped the two spaces,” said Nooney.

Also, additional security cameras were installed at all the schools and there is swipe-card access at every school for staff members.

The swipe cards, explained Sanders, replace keys.

“Each building has a certain number of doors” that can be opened with swipe cards, said Nooney. “We’ve increased the number.”

Guilderland Elementary also had windows repaired and its back parking lot paved.  Lynnwood, too, had windows repaired and a walkway to its new entrance reconfigured.

At Pine Bush Elementary, which Nooney pointed out “is our newest school but it’s 20 years old,” new flooring was installed in the cafeteria, hallways, and green pod and some roofing was replaced.

Additionally, across the district, technology was upgraded as part of the bond project. The district has 700 new Chromebooks, 150 new iPads, 150 new MacBook air laptops to be used among the five elementary buildings, and 90 new overhead LED projectors. Additional wireless access points were set up and the district’s server and uninterruptible power supply were replaced.

“We’re coming into the punch list for Phase One, working out the bugs and kinks,” said Nooney. Now that school is in session, work this fall will shift to the maintenance and transportation facilities, he said.

The project is scheduled for completion by the end of next summer. Next summer, too, work will be done on a $1,160,000 capital improvement project passed with 68 percent of the vote in May. The money will be spent to replace lights on the football field and to upgrade the high school auditorium.