GUILDERLAND — The school district is poised to sell one unused property — a piece of vacant land near Sacandaga Lake — while it finds itself unable to sell another — a 19^th-Century cobblestone schoolhouse in Guilderland Center.

The one-room schoolhouse on Route 146, the main street in Guilderland Center, was re-roofed with period-appropriate cedar shakes when then-Superintendent Blaise Salerno was enthusiastic about restoring it for field trips so modern-day Guilderland students could see how their long-ago peers were schooled.

“We’re still uncertain about its status. It needs repairs,” said the district’s assistant superintendent for business, Neil Sanders. “We tried to pursue grants. The money doesn’t seem to be there.”

He went on, “We did talk about selling but there are deed restrictions that returns it to the heirs” if the district were to not want it.

The lineage goes back to “one of the Van Rensselaers” who originally settled the area under the patroon system. “It goes that far back,” said Sanders. “When you follow the lineage, it runs out in the early 1900s. We can’t find a direct heir.”

Sanders said the district would be happy to donate the schoolhouse to a group that could care for it. But, he said, “We’re stuck. We’ve never been able to get a clear title.”

He concluded, “It’s a great one-room schoolhouse” but it would require time and money to restore that the district can’t afford.

Hadley property

The school district also owns 6.6 acres of wooded land in Hadley, a town in northern Saratoga County near the Great Sacandaga Lake.

Sanders provided a history of how Guilderland acquired the property, which the school board is now contemplating selling.

In 1972, he said, Niagara Mohawk made land across the state that it no longer needed available to public agencies like school districts. Thomas Looby, who was Guilderland’s superintendent at the time, requested property of not less than 200 acres located within 100 miles of the school district for use as an outdoor ecological laboratory.

In 1973, the district and National Grid entered into a one-year renewable lease with an annual rental fee of $100 for 6.6 acres. Two years later, Guilderland agreed to purchase the property that it had been leasing; it paid $1,320 or $200 per acre. Funds for the purchase came entirely from donations by student groups to the Sacandaga Outdoor Education Fund, Sanders said.

Asked how the property was used, Sanders said his information was “anecdotal,” stating students in environmental classes went there on one- or two-day excursions through the late 1980s.

“It doesn’t appear to have been used since the early 1990s,” Sanders said.

When the district was planning for the current capital project, he said, “We looked at all of our facilities.” The Science Cabinet was consulted and, Sanders said, “The consensus was they didn’t see that as usable in today’s age.” The land is a considerable distance from Guilderland and has no useable facilities. “And there are tick issues,” he added.

The property is currently estimated to be worth about $30,000, he said.