We know that, in this era of rising inflation, schools like the rest of us need to be careful with how they manage their money.

We also know that the Guilderland school district just received a clean audit because it does indeed carefully manage the funds with which the public has entrusted it.

But, even more importantly, we know the mission of a school district is to educate students — to let each become all he or she or they are capable of being.

That’s why we urge the Guilderland school district to spend the $8,000 or $9,000 it would take to hire three more coaches for the indoor track-and-field team.

The indoor track team has over 175 members and the ratio of one coach to about 60 athletes is much higher than for other school teams.

Adrian Cummings, a senior hurdler and sprinter, presented the school board with these calculations: For the boys’ varsity soccer team, the coach-to-student ratio is 1:9; for boys’ varsity volleyball, it’s 1:14; for girls’ varsity tennis, it’s 1:10; for varsity football, it’s 1:25.

In a letter summarized for board members at their meeting last week, Cummings went on, “11.25% of all Guilderland high schoolers participate in indoor track … And we have three coaches to watch all of them. To be completely blunt, it is unfair to them.”

He is right — it is unfair to the coaches who are spread too thin. As the coaches told the board in September, they simply can’t provide the instruction they would like to. Beyond that, no matter how vigilant a coach is, if there are too many students to watch, safety becomes a worry.

One of the three coaches, Taylor Mead, shared her practice schedule with the board last month. She is the only field-event coach and oversees two throwing events and four jumping events — each with different techniques.

“I have to try to be in three places at once,” she said.

Mead told the board, “We’re not here to complain to you that our job is hard. We understand that coaching is difficult. But we’re here to tell you that we need help and that we want to give these kids everything they should get as being part of a school sport — and we just don’t feel that we can do that.”

So the lack of enough coaches is equally unfair to the students. “As an athlete,” said Julia Gorevich, “I have always wanted to excel … While our coaches are great, I do not feel I get enough one-on-one time with the coach.”

Another athlete, Megan Swan, told the board in September, “Not everyone gets direct attention”; those at a higher level, like herself, get more attention, she said. Swan described “higher level members” having to help younger athletes at practice, which she said was “not really fair.”

Nevertheless, the indoor track team does well and grew during the pandemic as many sports were shut down and more students joined since practices, despite the cold and the snow on the ground, were moved outdoors.

One of the crowning glories of the team, more important than the many medals and honors that members have won, is its inclusiveness. Anyone can join; there are no try-outs. For many of the team members, this is their first try at an organized sport.

Success at sports, especially with college scholarships, can be a funnel for success in life. But Guilderland’s programs in cross-country as well as indoor and outdoor track offer more because of their inclusivity.

We were frankly bowled over when we interviewed four Guilderland girls who were named All American athletes after they ran the 4x55 Shuttle Hurdle Relay at the New Balance Nationals in New York City last March.

The Guilderland hurdlers — Kendall Barnhart, Kate Scanlan, Maeghan Hickey, and Parker Steele —  finished the relay in 34.99 seconds, placing them fourth in the United States and first in New York State while also breaking their school record and the Section 2 record.

What moved us, though, was not so much their athletic accomplishments but rather their love of the sport and their love of their teammates, which extended even to friendships with their competitors.

Track is a team sport, we learned, not just because individual scores are merged but because the athletes who practice for hours together every day and spend six to eight hours together at meets cheer for each other and help each other through anxieties and rough times.

“It’s not like a 45-minute game then it’s over,” said their coach, Chris Scanlan. 

Parker Steele, who also plays soccer, said she likes track because “we’re not fighting each other for playing time or getting jealous because we’re on the bench.”

What a wonderful life lesson to learn — that you can improve and run faster or jump higher or throw further and thereby help your team without having to displace someone else. Life should not be a zero sum game.

Kate Scanlan spoke of the good friends she made with some of her school’s competitors — girls she has seen year after year. “In other sports,” she said, “the other team can almost be pitted as an enemy whereas, if I know I’m running against someone who, even if they're faster than me, I know they can push me …. It’s a bond that I don’t see in any other sport, and it’s one of those things that I love.”

That’s another great lesson: To be inspired by someone better than you rather than seeing her as an enemy.

Guilderland’s cross-country and indoor and outdoor teams take anyone who is willing to work. As several school board members have pointed out, in both their September and October meetings, this fits perfectly with the school district’s mission of inclusivity.

Also, Alyssa Gorevich, one of the track parents who spoke to the board in September, said over 100 of the indoor track team’s members are girls, which makes it important for meeting federal Title IX requirements of equal access to sports.

Board member Katie DiPierro, a special education teacher, worried that students not able to stay on the team would be special-needs students, which would not support the district’s mission on inclusivity.

Board member Kim Blasiak concurred, saying that her son Alex, on the autism spectrum, “would not have made any other sport.”

“The first time I saw him run … was hideous,” she said. But now, she went on, “He is an amazing runner. He made varsity. He found his thing.”

At the October meeting, Blasiak said she had just come from a cross-country meet and reported kids are already “starting to panic” that they won’t be allowed on a team they love.

“We are continuing to look at this,” responded Superintendent Marie Wiles.

Reiterating the view administrators expressed at September’s meeting, she said, “We do not have extra resources to add to the budget.”

Wiles said the hope was “potential for some breakage,” meaning if older, more highly-paid coaches retired, there would be extra funds to hire more lesser-paid new coaches.

“I’m not making promises,” Wiles cautioned.

We believe the district has already made a promise, which it has been largely responsible in fulfilling. That promise is embodied in the district’s mission statement, which Wiles frequently references during the budget-building process:

To inspire all students to be active life-long learners, able to achieve their highest potential in a demanding and ever-changing global community.

The indoor track team, serving more than a tenth of the school’s students, does just that. By the accounts of the student athletes themselves, it inspires them to do their best — something many sports do — while at the same time, unique among sports, teaching the important life lesson of inclusivity and the value of shared striving.

The indoor track-and-field program is scheduled to start on Nov. 4. Time is of the essence in finding and hiring three new coaches.

The public approved a $110 million budget and has elected a board to represent their interests. The majority of the school board have expressed support for hiring the new coaches, so the administration should act.

Just before the school board was to adopt the district’s spending plan, on April 12, to send to the public for a May vote, the district learned $308,000 in expected state aid wouldn’t be forthcoming and had to be made up to keep Guilderland’s budget balanced.

A list of savings quickly materialized, including shifting about $100,000 in expenses — for custodial equipment, elementary-school furniture, and replacement musical equipment — to be covered instead by federal funds meant to help schools in dealing with the pandemic.

We believe similar shifts could be made to find the $8,000 or $9,000 needed to hire three more coaches.

Over the years on this page, we’ve written reams about the importance of fitness for learning. The figures on childhood obesity and on lack of engagement have only grown worse with the decades.

Nationwide, childhood obesity has tripled since 1980 and the health department for our state has found more than a third — 33.8 percent — of public sschool students are overweight or obese, with 17.6 percent considered obese.

The costs are enormous — not just the millions of dollars for health care but the mental toll as well. Study after study has shown that academic performance improves with physical fitness.

Running is a sport that anyone can do, any place, at any time. A lifelong habit like that will keep the hundreds of Guilderland graduates who participate in this program healthy for a lifetime if they stay with it.

We’ll close with words from Guilderland’s sprinter, Adrian Cummings: Running, he said, is “an easy sport to get into. You don’t need a 150-dollar football helmet or a 200-dollar baseball bat. All you need is a pair of sneakers and motivation.”

And, we might add, you need the coaches to get you started and keep you safely on track.