DANVILLE - The Danville District 118 School Board on Wednesday will hear a summary of bid results for Danville High School's new all-weather track.

Board members won't take action on the bids until a later meeting.

The track, in the planning stages for several years, will be north of DHS across Fairchild Street in an area now used as a practice football field.

Also at the meeting, board members will take action on the demolition of Douglas Grade School, 500 Florida Ave. The 92-year-old school closed in 2002 because of high maintenance costs and changing needs in the district, Associate Superintendent Mark Denman said.

The demolition has been planned for close to four years.

"It's part of an agreement with the city," said George Schildt, director of buildings and grounds. "The city gave us money for the track project, and we'll give them the property the school sits on."

The school district will cover demolition costs.

"We have to do asbestos removal first, and then have a contractor tear it down by bid," Schildt said.

"We'll hopefully be able to identify a successful bidder in March or April and have them begin work in May or June."

The Florida Avenue Douglas School, the second of two Douglas schools, was named after Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln's opponent in the 1858 senatorial campaign. Douglas gave speeches in the Douglas Park area at that time.

"We hate to see a part of our history being removed," Denman said.

"But the sad reality is that the heating bills, upkeep and maintenance is something few private businesses could afford."

Besides costs, other concerns include the fact the three-story building is not accessible to handicapped students.

At Wednesday's meeting, board members also will hear new changes to the middle school and high school math curriculums.

Denman said the district's curriculum committee spent many hours finalizing the changes, which mainly entail bringing the district's standards up to those of the state and setting quarterly objectives.

Though math classes will remain essentially the same, the biggest changes will be making the classes uniform throughout the district, Denman said.

"The biggest difference I see is (setting curriculum standards) closer to Illinois learning standards," Denman said.

Specifically, math classes at both middle schools will have the same objectives, so if students trans-fer, they will be at the same level.

For example, a student studying the metric system at South View who transfers to North Ridge will be ready for the next subject at the same time as South View students.

COMING UP

The Danville District 118 School Board will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Jackson Building, 516 N. Jackson St.