GUILDERLAND — Superintendent Marie Wiles told the school board Tuesday, during its televised meeting, that she wanted to “recognize the strength and character of this community” in dealing with the “unspeakable tragedies that struck our community.” Wiles said there was a remarkable response “big and small.”

Without describing the incident, Wiles was alluding to the discovery nearly two weeks ago, on Oct.  8, of the four slain bodies of the Chen family, in their home at 1846 Western Ave. Police last week released the names of the murder victims: Eddy Chen, 7, and Anthony Chen, 10 — both students at Guilderland Elementary School — and their parents, Jin Feng Cheng, 39, their father, and Hui Yan Li, 38, their mother.

State Police are heading the murder investigation, which also involves Guilderland Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New York Police Department, and the United States Department of Justice. Police have released no information on the means of the murder, the motive, or possible suspects.

Wiles praised the faculty and staff of Guilderland Elementary School and said she heard, all over town, people saying, “My children go there and I thank God my children go there.” She lauded the school’s principal, Allan Lockwood, for his leadership.

Further, Wiles praised the leaders in all seven of the district’s buildings and the district office who responded “with tremendous foresight and compassion.”

“If a crisis is the measure of a community and how it is able to respond, we have much to be proud of here in Guilderland,” she said. Wiles also praised the district’s publicist, Amy McGeady, whom, she said, “finds words for the things that can’t be spoken.”

Wiles went on to laud those in the larger community. She called the Guilderland Police “terrific partners” who did their level best to inform the school when information was in short supply.

She also praised the Employees’ Assistance Program, Hospice, and the Alberti Center at the University at Buffalo that offered advice.

Finally, she said the Chinese Community Center in Latham was consulted so that the district could strike a delicate balance between its needs and Chinese customs, which, she said, “We may not understand but we need to respect.”

“We’re not done yet,” said Wiles, anticipating weeks and months to come when the district will be “thinking about how best to honor and memorialize the lives of those two beautiful children.”

Summit approaches

In August, the school board, in a split vote, decided to disregard the recommendations at the conclusion of a controversial consultant’s report on efficient use of building space. Four out of five of Paul Seversky’s money-saving scenarios would have closed Altamont Elementary School; the fifth would have closed Lynnwood Elementary.

A session with focus groups, carefully selected to represent a cross-section of the district in order to comment on the scenarios, was jettisoned. Instead, the district is now planning what it is calling a “summit” on Nov. 19 at 6:45 p.m. to serve as a brainstorming session.

“Your chief job is to think about our future,” Wiles told the nine board members on Tuesday night. She said challenges of declining enrollment, excess capacity, and stagnant revenues have been defined.

“We’re looking for solutions,” said Wiles. “Our next step is to bring the community together in the form of a summit on Nov. 19…We invited ourselves to Tech Valley High School, within our district boundaries.”

The plan is to select a cross-section of 100 residents — the meeting space won’t hold more — “to generate as many ideas as possible,” said Wiles.

Participants will work in small groups to answer the question: How do we maintain our commitment to our core mission with the resources currently available to us?

Board member Judy Slack, who heads the board’s communications committee, which is planning the event, said letters are going out on Wednesday to people who wanted to be in the initially planned focus groups. Any taxpayer in the district — including owners of Guilderland businesses who live outside the district — may submit a request, available on the district’s website, to be part of the session.

“We are trying to be as inclusive as we can,” said Slack. She said if too many people apply for the session, “People might have to be excluded but that won’t mean they can’t be heard.”

“If we got 50 senior citizens, their names would go in a hat and be picked out in a public way,” said board President Barbara Fraterrigo.

“The purpose is generation of ideas,” said board member Catherine Barber, noting getting a cross-section is not the only goal.

Toward the end of the two-hour meeting, the board heard from Erika MacFarlane, who is active in Save Guilderland Schools, a grassroots group that sprang up after the release of Seversky’s report in June.

“I come in peace,” began MacFarlane. “I’m from Altamont….”

She said she appreciated the board’s direction and openness but said she had “a heavy heart” when she heard, at a communications committee meeting, a board member say, “I don’t want to hear any more from Altamont.”

MacFarlane noted the name of the grassroots group is “Save Guilderland Schools,” not “Save Altamont’s School,” and said, “You’re stuck with us…Take it as a positive note.” She described it as a group of citizens committed to supporting, researching, and helping.

MacFarlane works for the Schenectady schools, which have faced much larger budget gaps than Guilderland and have held summit sessions. She recommended Guilderland would be more inclusive if the district held more than the one planned meeting “on the very edge of the district” in a location that holds only 100 people. Tech Valley High School is located at 246 Tricentennial Drive, Albany, NY  12203.

She also wanted to know what the criteria for selection would be and asked, “Is that public?”

“You don’t want it to seem you are trying to choose, and fish for your answer,” MacFarlane said, concluding, “I just want to clear the air between Altamont and the district.”

Other business

In other business, the school board:

— Was lauded, with a library book selected in honor of each member, for School Board Recognition Week;

— Heard from Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders that that state has reimbursed the district in full for the damage caused to the playing fields at Farnsworth Middle School last March when more people than planned for showed up to take Civil Service exams and, with the lots full, parked on the grass.

The district spent $4,526.52 to restore the field, paying for topsoil, grass seed, fertilizer, fuel, and labor. Sanders said the cost would have been much higher if Grassland Equipment & Irrigation Corporation hadn’t donated, for three or four weeks, use of a tractor and equipment to till, level, seed, compact, and aerate the soil.

The field is now “fully operational,” said Michael Laster, the middle school principal. “It’s probably nicer than before,” said Sanders.

— Learned that, at the Nov. 5 board meeting, district residents can comment on next year’s budget; comments may also be written. This is the 15th year the board has had a session to listen to early recommendations from the public on the budget;

— Heard from Sanders about enrollment figures, which districts across the state collect each year on the first Wednesday of October for the State Education Department. Guilderland currently has 4,917 students, eight fewer than enrolled last year but 30 more than predicted when developing this year’s budget.

Combined enrollment at the five elementary schools is down 12 students from last year and down 13 at the high school but up 17 at the middle school. Also, 93 students, an increase of three over last year, live in the district but are enrolled in other programs for which the district pays.

Finally, another 87 out-of-district students are housed in Guilderland classrooms, rented to the board of Cooperative Educational Services or to the Early Childhood Education Center;

— Approved winter interscholastic sports coaches, including one volunteer coach: Jim Archibald for varsity ice hockey. Sanders explained that, since the district has cut ice hockey — Guilderland was combined with two other schools in its last incarnation — “the coach is going to be a volunteer”;

— Reviewed policies on community relations, board-member qualifications, alternative education, computer resources and data management, and information and security breach notification;

— Heard from Demian Singleton, the district’s assistant superintendent for instruction, that Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, will be at Guilderland High School on Nov. 13 where all of the district’s fifth- and sixth-graders will be bused to see him.

Kinney was at Guilderland in 2008 when he told students at Westmere Elementary School he became a cartoonist because, he said, “I was trying to save face.” He told a story that could have come from his wimpy kid hero, saying how freshman year of college he was laughed at when he went to the school newspaper. “So I said, ‘I’ll do cartoons’ to save myself embarrassment,” said Kinney. And he did. (The whole story is online at altamontenterprise.com/Weekly%20Archives/2008/02-07-08/Guilderland1.html.)

— Learned that Kathryn Matthews, a math teacher at Farnsworth Middle School, received a $1,000 Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) Teaching Tools grant;

— Agreed to become part of a cooperative to reduce the cost of purchasing “excess insurance.” Sanders said this insurance is needed to “protect the district against catastrophic-type claims.” Purchasing through the cooperative could save the district about $15,000 annually, he said;

— Approved an agreement with Utica College to provide clinical education for occupational therapy students;

— Approved an addendum to an agreement with Hillcrest Educational Centers Inc. to provide services for a student with disabilities for this school year. Sanders said the student in question has had the same one-to-one support since 2007;

— Approved a memorandum of agreement for the Approved Special Education Program provider’s share of the federal IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) Flow-Through Funds for Albany County Preschool;

— Approved an emergency-sheltering agreement with Tech Valley High School. In case of an emergency, Farnsworth Middle School would serve as the evacuation site for Tech Valley students, Sanders said;

— Extended for one year the bid award to Coyne Textile Services for uniform, mop, and mat service at an estimated cost of $20,308.92. “That just sounds like so much,” said Slack.

Sanders explained that mop heads, used at all seven schools, are cleaned and returned twice a week, which he said was more cost effective and environmentally friendly than constantly buying new mops. Similarly, uniforms for custodians are regularly laundered, and entry mats at the schools are cleaned and returned weekly, which prevents slipping that could be a liability issue, Sanders said;

— Approved three co-curricular clubs: a new sign-language club at the middle school, advised by Barbara Webb, without pay; a Free the Children club at the high school, formerly known as Global Outreach, to raise funds to promote clean water in developing countries, advised by Tara McConaghy, without pay; and the Guilderland High School Chamber Choir, a select ensemble, which, advisor Rae Jean Teeter wrote, “will give our very best vocal musicians a chance to rehearse and perform a wide variety of advanced vocal literature from many different musical genres….”

Teeter’s post is paid, as it always has been, said Wiles. The chamber choir changed into a club, she said, because of a shift in the high school schedule; the group used to rehearse during the now-eliminated advisory periods;

— Discussed at length board members’ views on resolutions that will be proposed at the New York State School Boards Association convention, to be held in New York City from Oct. 26 to 28. Fraterrigo will attend as Guilderland’s voting delegate and Gloria Towle-Hilt will serve as alternate.

After board members discussed each issue, Fraterrigo tallied the board’s response, noting the matters were more philosophical than practical. At the end of the meeting, she said it was “the most thoughtful, well-reasoned discussion of all these resolution” the board had ever had; and

— Heard from board member Jennifer Charron that the eighth Recycling Extravaganza will be held at Farnsworth Middle School on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Participants, who don’t have to live in the district, may recycle plastics, papers, metals, electronics, and textiles.

Charron also said that outgrown bikes could be exchanged for refurbished larger ones, and hard — not upholstered — furniture could be donated to immigrants. “We get paid on poundage,” she said, encouraging residents to bring in their recyclables.