Nothing is final.
That’s what Superintendent Andy Gardner stressed when presenting to the Greater Albany Public School Board this May about possible school consolidation options and bond proposals in the district’s future.
Like other districts across the region, GAPS is navigating what steps to take as its student enrollment — and therefore, state funding — continues to decline.
Elementary schools have seen the largest drops, Gardner explained, largely due to lower birth rates. Districts are also seeing declining capture rates, which refer to the number of students who live within the school district boundaries and actually enroll in public school. Instead, some are being homeschooled or opting for a private program.
As a result, the district’s Long Range Facility Advisory Committee is considering options for how to move forward.
One idea is to close one or more schools.
Takena, Central, Tangent, Oak and Waverly schools were all presented to the school board last month as having smaller student populations. North Albany Elementary is also on the list for possible consolidation, given the facility's condition.
Gardner said it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly qualifies as the perfect-sized school. Staffing, student-teacher ratios, and union contract requirements, among other things, are all factored into these decisions. The district has also conducted polls to get community input.
Joe Samaniego testified on the issue, urging the district not to close Tangent Elementary specifically. Samaniego, the city manager for the City of Tangent, said he went to an April city council meeting to learn about the possible school closure. He said more than 40 parents showed up; they had to move the meeting from City Hall to the fire station to accommodate everyone.
Samaniego said Tangent Elementary has served local residents for years as a cornerstone of the local education system, adding that the school existed before Tangent became a city in 1973.
“The city and all the residents that have children really want to have the school here because of everything it has done,” he said.
GAPS is also considering proposing a bond to voters to help improve the physical conditions of the remaining schools. Capital construction bond funds can only be used for buildings; they can’t backfill budget needs for daily operations, such as employee salaries.
“Almost all of our buildings were built between 1945, the end of the Second World War… and 1970,” Gardner said. He listed the four buildings built since then. “That’s it,” he said. As a result, there’s a wide range of maintenance needs, totaling roughly $170 million.
Any proposed consolidations would be separate from the bond and could have a different timeline. However, members of the Long Range Facility Advisory Committee are paying attention to how the two relate.
Gardner gave the Corvallis School District as an example, saying the district passed a bond in 2018 that funded projects at every building, and then, in 2025, they began to consider closing schools.
“Even the fact that seven years prior, they had invested in those buildings, was held against the district,” he recalled. Some community members “saw that as a waste of money.”
Gardner said a bond or school closures are “both part of responsible stewardship of the district.”
“We need to continue to put the best schools forward,” he said, adding that continued programming, whether it’s drama or music or athletics, is part of that. “And,” he went on, “we have to respond to declining enrollment.
“We need to continue to make a school district where kids want to come.”
The Long Range Facility Advisory Committee plans to present its recommendations to the board this fall. The district has to apply for the state OSCIM grant, which matches a certain amount of money for capital construction bonds, by Dec. 15.
May 2027 is the earliest voters might see the bond on their ballots.
