BOXHOLM — Southeast Valley School District is putting its school property in Boxholm on the market.

The district will be accepting sealed bids on the old elementary school, which has been vacant for about five years, until Oct. 16. The old elementary school that was part of Southeast Webster-Grand School District last served students in fifth and sixth grades, said Superintendent Brian Johnson.

As school districts face increasingly tough decisions on a horizon of rural depopulation and flat or declining enrollment, he said the school board is trying to do what’s in the best interest of the district and the city.

The listing is the first time the district has tried to sell the property since the school closed, but the district is not set on accepting any low-ball bid. Johnson said the district may be content waiting to sell the property until the right bid is received.

But what the district doesn’t want is a building that becomes a “nuisance property.”

“As you go across Iowa and see schools consolidate and close, you see a lot of buildings falling down and becoming basically nuisance properties,” he said. “The school board doesn’t want that and Boxholm doesn’t want that.”

Children in Boxholm now go to school in Dayton, Burnside or Gowrie, depending on their grade level. The district, with more than 500 square miles in its coverage area, has an elementary enrollment of about 250 this year.

Johnson said too many variables in the equation prevent him from being able to give an accurate estimate of what the property might be worth. With just over eight acres, including a ball field and bus garage, the value to a buyer would depend on what they want to do with it.

The property is currently in a residential zone in Boxholm. Making it into anything other than a house or apartments would require rezoning with the city of Boxholm.

Johnson said the district is also open to demolishing the building altogether, should no reasonable bids be received, in order to prevent the property from becoming an eyesore.

“If we have to demolish the building, then so be it,” he said. “We’re trying to make the best decision we can out of a bad situation.”

“When you close down a school, you kind of take a little bit of the soul from the community,” Johnson said. “It’s a bad situation, but that seems to be the trend in rural education in Iowa right now.”

He said enrollment in the district has been stable in his first three years as a superintendent, but he predicts future declines.

“I just don’t know how much,” he said.

About 15 communities are served under the district’s area. Previous reorganizations in the district included Cedar Valley School District combining with Prairie School District to become Prairie Valley, and Southeast Webster combining with Grand to become Southeast Webster-Grand.