In Oregon’s primary election in May, a week before an 18-year-old gunman shot and killed 19 children and two teachers at a rural elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, eight school districts asked voters to approve bonds that would help improve school security.

The bonds, for districts mostly in rural areas, included funds for secure entryways, lock systems, cameras and intercom systems.

Districts representing nearly every corner of the state were seeking millions of dollars to bolster their facilities.

Each bond failed.

The shooting in Texas, and rising rates of gun violence nationwide, reignited debates over how to keep schools safe, and many of the districts where bonds failed plan to raise the question again. For educators and administrators in parts of rural Oregon, it underscored the need for the security improvements they sought during the past election cycle.

“Nobody wants to be the first school in Central Oregon who has to endure this,” said Scott Cooper, a board member from the Crook County School District, which proposed a $66 million bond measure that failed this year. It included $527,000 intended for surveillance, fencing, doors and hardware.

It’s common for school districts to seek out security improvements as part of their bond measures. But administrators in some rural areas say the latest tragedy in the rural Texas town proved that a school shooting can happen anywhere.

“These rural and coastal communities, they generally feel safe,” said Kevin Bogatin, the superintendent of the North Bend School District on the Oregon Coast. “But it’s getting them to see that you’re not immune from this.”

Administrators point to a variety of factors contributing to the bond failures. Some point to the national economic turmoil spurred by inflation and rising gas prices, saying voters may have felt less inclined to approve bonds that would increase taxes.

“In rural communities, the economic forces are felt more quickly than in other areas,” said Dandy Stevens, the superintendent of the Gervais School District in Marion County.

Bogatin said the recent political tension around school districts among some rural residents, which often lean conservative, may have also increased voter skepticism about bonds that would increase taxes. He added: “Six dollar gas certainly did not help that.”

But Bogatin said the district needs to secure its entryways. At around the time of the shooting, he said a trespasser walked into a school and stole pop cans out of a staff room. Had the shooting occurred before the election, it may have changed the minds of the 58 voters the rural district needed for the bond to pass, he said.

“I don’t know if another school shooting will draw attention,” he said. “But it seems like it holds people’s attention pretty short these days.”

Rural school districts need these improvements, Stevens said. In rural areas, sometimes it can take time for authorities to arrive at an emergency. That makes strong school security that much more essential, she added.

Of the Gervais district’s $31 million bond this year, about $2.5 million was intended for safety and security features, including locking doors, secure vestibules, intercom systems, camera systems, hardening of entry and exit ways.

“Most of us think that’s not going to happen here,” Stevens said. “But it just takes one person who’s having a mental health crisis to create chaos.”

Now, at least four of the districts are weighing the option of going out for another bond. One — Roseburg Public Schools — is moving forward with a bond solely focused on safety and security in May 2023, Jared Cordon, the Roseburg superintendent, said in an email.

Crook County spokesperson Jason Carr said in an email that the district upgraded its school building entrances with funding from a 2012 bond measure. Had this year’s bond measure passed, the investments “would’ve allowed us to fully complete all security upgrades at every school.”

Cooper, the Crook County board member, said the district is weighing what kind of additional security measures it can take and how that could be factored into another bond measure that could come this year.

“We cannot let this keep happening,” he said.