GUILDERLAND — As an early step in forming the 2018-19 school budget, district Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders asked Guilderland’s school board to start deciding what it would like to do with the Cobblestone Schoolhouse, a historical property the school district owns but does not use.

It is important for the board to decide whether it wants to keep or transfer the property, Sanders told The Enterprise this week, because there are different costs that will be incurred in either case. There would be legal costs involved in transferring it, and maintenance and repair costs in keeping it.

In developing the current year’s budget, the board considered saving money by not repairing the schoolhouse, garnering media attention and pleas from several politicians.

The question is complicated by a reversion clause in the deed.

The schoolhouse was built in 1860 on Main Street in Guilderland Center; the land it sits on was deeded to the school district 20 years earlier by Stephen Van Rensselaer for the purpose of creating a schoolhouse. The deed contains a reversion clause, saying that if the district ever became unable to use it for education, it would return to Van Rensselaer’s heirs.

A one-room schoolhouse for the children of Guilderland Center until 1941, it has not had regular classroom use in over seven decades, but has been the site of sporadic field trips. In the 1980s, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and was used as headquarters for the now-defunct Guilderland League of Arts.

It could take several months and would cost the district between $5,000 and $10,000 to get a full title report on the property, given the length of time since the origination of the deed as well as the number of heirs of Van Rensselaer, who had 10 children. Sanders noted that Van Rensselaer heirs may have a diminished ownership interest. The reversion clause would have been triggered in 1941, and only the school district has been identified as an owner since then. The district has strong legal argument for an “adverse possession” argument, based on its continued ownership over the past 76 years, Sanders said.

The only known descendant of Stephen Van Rensselaer said there are many other heirs in many states, Sanders told the board. That descendant said he was not interested in the property but could not speak for other heirs.

Two descendents of the Ogsbury family have come forward to claim that their family owned the land on which the schoolhouse is located, Sanders said this week. Neither of them has provided substantive documentation of their claims, he said. The 1840 deed was never recorded or was not recorded where it should have been.

The board has three options, Sanders said:

— Transfer the property without quieting the title: A qualified entity such as the county or a historical society could take over the property, assuming that it would be willing to indemnify the school district from any future actions initiated by Van Rensselaer heirs claiming an ownership right. The school district would not be able to convey clear legal title. Board President Christine Hayes asked Sanders at the Nov. 14 meeting if anyone had expressed interest, since the spring, in taking over and using the property. Sanders said no;

— Initiate a quiet title action: This process could be initiated if there were a party willing to assume ownership provided that clear legal title could be established. Parties claiming an ownership right would present their case to a judge, who would render a decision and establish a clear legal title. The purpose of this action would be to transfer the ownership, so the district would want to do this only if an interested party existed that wanted clear title. The action would take several months and cost between $6,000 and $12,000, Sanders said.

— Keep the property without any further action: In this option, the district would continue as owner of the property, bolstered by the adverse-possession claim. The district would be obligated to repair and maintain the schoolhouse as needed, Sanders said. Newly elected board Vice President Seema Rivera said, “To me, it kind of sounds like a money pit. I don’t see any goals or plans. We’re just going to keep paying to maintain it.”

Over the last budget season, the board vacillated about whether to make repairs to the schoolhouse, to keep it from further decaying.

Clifford Nooney, the district’s superintendent of building and grounds, initially requested $30,000 to make repairs that he said were necessary, shoring up the floor and the roof.

The $30,000 initially appeared in the draft budget but, after lengthy debate, the board took a straw vote on April 6, deciding tentatively not to include any money for repairs in the year’s budget.

This brought many members of the public, town officials, and State Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy to the board’s next meeting, on April 11, to make impassioned pleas for the board to make the repairs, in order to stabilize the building, so that an informed decision could later be made about what to do with it in the future.

The board then voted to approve $35,000; the amount had risen when the district got better estimates for the work.

Until last winter, the schoolhouse still held items from the days when children studied there, including old-fashioned desks and maps on the wall. The school district has since put them into storage.

The work budgeted for this year has now been done, Sanders reported. The floor has been replaced with fir floorboards appropriate to the age of the building; also replaced were rotted floor joists and the rotted sections of the roof soffit and the fascias, or boards just below the roof. The roof itself was replaced in 2003 with era-appropriate cedar-shake shingles, but the fascias do not seem to have been replaced at that time.

Sanders reported to the board on additional repairs totaling $49,050 that will be needed in the near future, and their anticipated costs:

— Replace roof: $23,400

— Shore up the east side of the building foundation: $8,250

— Trim back large overhanging oak tree: $5,000

— Replace water-damaged interior walls and ceiling, if necessary for planned use: $12,400, which does not include the cost of insulation.

Sanders said this week that there is lead paint in the interior and that this is another reason take out the walls and ceiling, rather than try to repair them.

Of the needed repairs, Sanders said told the board, bringing in a crane to trim the overhanging oak tree is the most pressing.

Town Supervisor Peter Barber told The Enterprise this week, “It is rare that a community still has a building in good condition that was at the start of public education in the town” and that has lasted, in relatively good condition, for more than two centuries.

His wife, Catherine Barber, a school board member, had earlier pointed out the historical value of the building to the school board.

One of the people who pleaded with the board, at the April 11 meeting, to make repairs was Mary Giordano, executive director of the not-for-profit Family Promise of the Capital Region and Barber’s sister.

Barber was asked, hypothetically, if about 10 classes were to visit the repaired and refurbished schoolhouse each year, and repairs had cost the town $49,000, would those be expensive field trips? He said he did not think so, “if you view the $49,000 as an investment for generations to come.”

Barber pointed out that the schoolhouse borders Keenholts Park and that the town-owned historic Frederick-Mynderse House is nearby and suggested that the proximity could be leveraged in some way to bring more visitors. The Frederick-Mynderse House is already opened to the public several days a year, he said; perhaps the schoolhouse could be opened at those times as well.

The Frederick-Mynderse House is used as a meeting place for the historical society and the garden club as well as the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The Cobblestone Schoolhouse predates the automobile, and there is currently no parking lot, but a small gravel one could be put in, and, Barber said, it was his understanding that the church next door had no problem with visitors to the schoolhouse parking in its lot.

In other business, the board:

— Heard that a new kindergarten teacher, Trisha Leavens, had started work that week. Altamont Principal Peter Brabant thanked the school board “for letting this happen.”

In a special meeting on Sept. 19, the board had responded to requests from parents by voting to hire a new kindergarten teacher to relieve overcrowding in the two classrooms at Altamont, which each had 24 students.

The hiring of the new teacher allows the students to be rearranged into three classrooms, creating a better teacher-student ratio. The district’s guidelines call for having no more than 23 students in a kindergarten class.

Clarified on Nov. 28, 2017: The article originally stated the Cobblestone School had not been used in seven decades. This was changed to “has not had regular classroom use,” and the school’s use for sporadic field trips and as headquarters for the Guilderland League of Arts and was added.