CARRINGTON, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – The Carrington School Board has approved a bid to conduct demolition of the old Carrington Elementary School in January next year.

At their December School Board meeting, the board opened and viewed 12 different bids for the demolition of the school. Superintendent Dr. Brian Duchscherer says they awarded the bid to RTS Shearing in Jamestown.

Originally built in 1935, the old Elementary School became vacant after students and teachers moved into the new building earlier this year. The south addition was built on around 1958. Duchscherer says they are looking at demolishing the 84 year-old building in January 2019.

The school district would like to see the entire block return to grass and put the land up for sale. Duchscherer says they’d like to see it maybe converted into a residential area or some future development for Carrington.

In other school news, Dr. Duchscherer says teacher Michele Seil will be retiring after the school year.

Duchscherer also addressed his planned retirement. He says he originally submitted his retirement as part of the Rule of 85. This legislation allows a member who is at least 55 to retire with unreduced benefits when the member’s age and years of service equal 85.

Dr. Duchscherer says he had originally submitted the paperwork for retirement, but after having sent out the preliminary agenda decided that he wanted to stay on to finish some projects.

Dr. Duchscherer joins Greg Grenz each month to talk about school news and happenings on AM 1600 the Cardinal.