OWASA, Iowa (AP) — Across Iowa, many former rural schools are now vacant buildings, and more small schools may feel pressure to close in the next few years. The Des Moines Register reports  a budget guarantee that had help small districts with declining enrollments survive expired last year after being phased out over a decade.

So it may become harder for small schools to stay open. Today, Iowa has 338 school districts. In 1950, there were 4,652 districts. The idle school building in Owasa is symbolic of the trend because local leaders fought a 1958 law that required all schools to be part of a K-12 district.

Owasa’s school closed after an Iowa Supreme Court ruling in 1967, and the town’s population has declined 60 percent since then.