Erin Elworthy was the chairwoman when the school closed in August, 2012. There had been a school in the Styx Valley for 97 years but the board was forced to seek its closure that year, because of a lack of pupils and few prospective enrolments.
The school grounds and buildings were advertised for sale by tender at the weekend.
Tenders close on May 15.
According to the Central Otago District Council's rating roll, the school's two blocks of land, one of 0.3172ha and one of 0.2422ha, school buildings and separate school house have a combined capital value of $482,000.
''There's no way the community could afford to pay anything like that to retain the buildings for community use,'' Mrs Elworthy said yesterday.
The disposal of school sites generally followed three earlier steps, Land Information New Zealand (Linz) Crown Property deputy chief executive Brian Usherwood said.
The school site was offered for sale on the open market after determining the land was not needed for any other public works, after working out whether it needed to be offered back to the person the Crown originally bought it from, or their successors, and after offering it to Maori under the Treaty settlement.
''The property was offered to Ngai Tahu in January ... and they declined the offer,'' Mr Usherwood said.
There was no ''reserve'' price on the properties and if an ''acceptable'' offer was received, the property would be sold.
If there was no acceptable tender price offered, Linz would reconsider whether to re-list the property for sale, he said.
Council property and facilities manager Mike Kerr said although the idea of the school being purchased for the use of the community had been floated, nobody had come back to the council with a proposal.
If there was ''strong interest'' in the properties being kept as a community recreation ground, for example, the Maniototo Community Board could look into vesting it as a reserve.
However, the council would normally be required to pay market value, less any value in buildings on the school provided by the local community over the years.
He was unaware of any ''push'' from the community to retain those properties as a recreation ground.
