The former Broad Street Elementary School is one of four buildings currently up for sale after being closed by the Butler School District in June.

Closed schools from three Butler County school districts are currently on the real estate market, tangible examples of gradually shrinking school populations countywide.

Butler School District is selling four school buildings that it closed in June: Broad Street, Clearfield, Meridian and Oakland elementary schools.

A recent round of sealed bids on the Butler schools was unsuccessful, with two offers the school board rejected last month. The school board recently began to pursue sales directly as a district. For sale signs have been posted at each of the four properties.

Dale Lumley, Butler superintendent, said seven or eight parties have expressed interest and have toured buildings so far. None has made an offer yet.

“A number of people are interested. There are some nonprofit companies, there are some for-profit companies that are interested,” he said.

He declined to elaborate on the individuals and companies involved. The buildings will also be listed in November's edition of Butler Eagle Marketplace, in a motion approved by school board members at their agenda-setting meeting Monday night.

Mars School District closed Middlesex Elementary more than a decade ago, but decided to put the school building on the market in July. Since the school closed in 2004, the building has been used for the district's special education and pupil services departments, plus as leasing space for other educational entities.

The district is now accepting sealed bids until Nov. 6.

Karns City School District has had Bruin Elementary on the market for more than two years now. It has been listed with Northwood Realtors for the past year, but no offers have been made on it. That school closed in 2012.

“There's been some interest, but nothing has developed yet,” said Eric Ritzert, Karns City superintendent. “We would be optimistic if a nonprofit or a governmental agency would have an interest in the building to benefit the community.”

The Butler County Housing and Redevelopment Authority initially had an interest in the Bruin building, but the sale never came to fruition.

Meanwhile, two other school districts have sold three excess school buildings this year.

Freeport School District sold its recently closed kindergarten center and its nearly 100-year-old junior high school building, both located in Freeport, to an Armstrong County developer for $175,000. The company, New Course, plans to transition the buildings into a medical office and day care space and housing.

Those buildings were sold in July, only a month after they closed.

Slippery Rock School District sold Har-Mer Elementary School to Slippery Rock University for $300,000 in February to be used as the university's main site for its planned master of science in physician assistant studies degree.

The school had 99 students when it closed in 2013.

Tom King, with Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham, is the solicitor for several Butler County school boards, including Butler and Mars. He said there are a variety of factors that come into play when selling school buildings.

“It differs from place to place,” he said of school building sales. “The age of the building, the location of the building, the condition of the building.”

He said a building's worth also is tied to how a buyer would use it.