GERVAIS, Ore. — The Gervais School District will continue to stay in operation after voters passed a bond measure for infrastructure upgrades on Tuesday. District officials previously said the district would close down if the measure failed.
Since 1991, the Gervais School District had tried to pass a bond measure for infrastructure upgrades eight times. Each time, the measure failed — until Tuesday.
"I am surprised," Gervais Superintendent Dandy Stevens said of the landslide outcome. As of Tuesday night, 73% of voters had voted in favor of the bond measure, Stevens said.
"They recognized that it was time to make a major investment in our district," Stevens added.
The bond is for $28 million. Money will likely be used to build a brick-and-mortar middle school, add new roofs to the high school and elementary school, and replace the boiler at the elementary school.
This week, the boiler went out at the elementary school, with liquid leaking onto the boiler room floor.
"It feels surreal,” Krysteena Leimbach, a parent of two Gervais elementary schoolers, said. "It's kind of hard to believe that it passed after so long."
Leimbach’s family has a long lineage of attending Gervais schools. Her husband's grandmother attended the school district, graduating in 1955.
"It feels like family," she added.
Many other school districts across Oregon were successful in passing bond and levy measures.
"Big-picture funding measures did pretty well," John Horvick, senior Vice President of DHM research, said.
Horvick studies polling and said more measures for services are passing in recent years.
"I do think since COVID, there's been a recognition that investments in public services have great value," Horvick added.
Portland voters easily renewed a teacher's levy, which supports hundreds of teaching positions.
A school measure for a new high school was rejected by voters in Estacada, a rare instance in the metro area where a school measure failed.
In Gervais, school officials are now turning their attention to finding a project manager to begin the process of upgrading buildings.