The modular buildings containing the Gervais Middle School science classrooms lack proper science equipment, bathrooms, a secured entry or covered connections to the rest of the school. The Gervais School District, however, has been unable to pass a bond to update its facilities. (Photo by Jake Arnold, OSBA)
Jane Carter loves teaching music for the Gervais School District, but her room off a converted auto shop in the elementary school has problems.
“This is where I look for the dead mice in the morning, and this is where it floods,” she said, pointing around the room. The carpet is coming up, the students don’t have a bathroom nearby, the temperature tends to alternate between extreme heat and cold, and the pipes sometimes play their own accompanying chorus.
“My students deserve the very best,” she said. “There are a lot of things I can’t control that aren’t.”
The Gervais School Board is considering asking voters for a bond to give their students better facilities. Voters have told them no eight times since 1997, though, most recently last year. If voters say no again, the district might fold and be broken up among its neighboring districts.
“We have to have a backup plan,” said Ana Contreras, board vice chair. “Everybody is struggling. We understand that. But the need for the schools isn’t going to go away.”
Gervais’ situation is dire, but its struggle is not unique.
Oregon’s school buildings average more than 40 years old, according to the Oregon Department of Education, with accompanying problems with climate, electrical and plumbing systems; inadequate learning spaces; and nonexistent safety and security features. Many school districts, especially in smaller communities, can’t raise the money to modernize their facilities.
School districts receive money annually from the State School Fund to pay for staff, supplies and programs. But large capital costs, such as updating existing schools or building new ones, take a bigger chunk of one-time money than most districts can squeeze out of their annual budgets. It’s like trying to buy a house when you barely have enough for rent and food.
The answer is a loan. If voters approve a local bond, a district borrows money and pays it back from a percentage tax on local property. That is a harder sell in small and rural districts, where fewer landowners and lower property values make individual rates higher.
OSBA holds a conference every two years to help guide school leaders through the process. This year’s Bonds, Ballots and Buildings Conference is Feb. 16 in Salem. The agenda includes sessions on bond passage nuts and bolts as well as opportunities to learn from successful campaigns.
The 70-square-mile Gervais district sprawls between Woodburn and Salem, with most students living in Gervais. The district was created in the 1990s when seven K-8 districts were forced to consolidate with the Gervais Union High School district. The district’s high school, middle school and elementary are all in Gervais within a couple of blocks of each other.
Superintendent Dandy Stevens said seeds of its current struggles were planted when the small outlying elementary schools were closed more than a decade ago and consolidated in town. Those communities felt disenfranchised and they lost ties to the district as their children grew up and left, Stevens said. They have not been supportive of bonds.
The district has stepped up communications, with a newsletter sent to every registered voter, and in-person meetings in Gervais and the various communities. Stevens said districts need to be thinking about communications long before a bond appeal, showing voters that they are good stewards of public money.
Stevens said the district has diligently maintained its buildings and hired a grant writer to find extra facilities money, but the buildings need major work.
The elementary school, built in 1934, needs a new roof, windows, paint and interior updates. The building has no central air conditioning and uses an outdated boiler system for heat. When it rains, the students play in a former high school auto shop, with bare cement floors and plastic sheeting above the visible rafters to keep insulation off the children.
The middle school is a set of modular buildings put up in 2013 during consolidation and after another bond failure. Students must travel uncovered walkways between buildings for classes and to eat in the nearby high school cafeteria. It doesn’t have a common area, and not all the buildings have bathrooms.
The high school shows its 1963 roots. It needs upgrades to its plumbing, electrical and ventilation systems as well as upgrades to meet Americans with Disabilities Act compliance and current codes.
All three schools’ front entries don’t meet current security expectations.
For the last bond effort, Stevens said, the district identified 119 needed projects costing $60 million, an impossible reach for the community. The district whittled it down to $24.5 million, cutting things such as anything related to sports.
“That package really is the bare minimum,” she said. “All of our major infrastructure systems are failing.”
Contreras said the board is still discussing its options but isn’t likely to go much lower, even though it would be a “huge ask” for a largely low-income community.
“It doesn’t make sense for something really low,” she said. “That’s not going to fix all the issues we have.”
It makes Contreras sick to think about, but without a bond passage soon, all three schools would probably close.
The nearly 900 students would likely be divided among five neighboring districts, according to Stevens, because no district would want to keep operating Gervais’ buildings.
It would be a devastating blow to Gervais. The school district is the largest employer in a town with only a few small businesses, and it’s the community’s social center.
Bond opposition has mostly centered on anti-tax sentiments, but if the bond fails, nearly all district voters would likely end up paying more.
Gervais’ five neighboring districts all have bonds, with an average rate of $2.37 per $1,000 of assessed value, according to the district. Gervais’ May 2023 bond attempt came with an estimated rate of $1.97 per $1,000. If the Gervais School District breaks up, homeowners will have to pay the taxes of whichever district they land in.
The district can sweeten the bond campaign pitch with its eligibility for a $6 million Oregon School Capital Improvement Matching Program grant. The OSCIM program has been a selling point in many districts’ campaigns, and the Legislature recently increased the matching amount.
Colton Superintendent David Kline said the OSCIM money still wasn’t enough to get a bond passed last year in his district northwest of Gervais.
Voters said improving the district’s facilities is important but it costs too much, according to surveys.
Kline said the district is looking at other options, including applying for a Seismic Rehabilitation Grant project that would incorporate some of the structural improvements needed.
Rep. Tracy Cramer, R-Woodburn, is a Gervais graduate who has worked with the district. Last session she sponsored legislation to create a fund for school facility upgrades that failed to move forward. She says she will continue to advocate for school districts that need repairs.
Kline would like to see the Legislature find creative ways other than property taxes to pay for school facilities.
“Currently what we are doing is not working in a lot of collective ways and not benefiting our students,” he said.
– Jake Arnold, OSBA
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