Hanecak back on school board

WINSTED — Despite losing his Board of Education seat at November’s municipal elections, Joseph Hanecak was appointed to a vacant two-year board seat by members during a special meeting on Thursday, Dec. 1, at Batcheller School.The vote to approve the appointment was 6-1, with board member James Roberts the only one against it.Board member Christine Royer did not attend the meeting.The seat was vacated due to former board chairman Kathleen O’Brien’s resignation on Aug. 9.Because O’Brien resigned right after the deadline for parties to name their endorsements and for petitioning candidates to submit their election forms to the town, it was necessary for the board to appoint a new member to the seat.According to current Board Chairman Susan Hoffnagle, the board contacted the Democratic, Republican and local Independent parties to see if any candidates would apply for the seat.Hoffnagle said Hanecak was the only applicant for the seat.Despite being the only applicant, before being approved to take the seat, board members asked Hanecak several questions.When asked what he would like to contribute to the Board of Education, Hanecak said he would like to push the board to move forward with new technology for the district.“First, we have to square away our email, that issue is the biggest thing,” Hanecak said. “The second thing is our website server capacity and what we can do to up its capacity. The third thing is putting the district’s policies and bylaws up on the Internet so people can actually read them.”Hanecak said the district is “light years” behind when it comes to technology.“I would like to see the fourth, fifth and sixth grades have much more technology, even beyond the smartboards,” Hanecak said. “There’s really no reason why we should be spending more money on textbooks and things of that nature anymore. We have a whole slew of library books from the fifties that are outdated.”Board member Brian Shaughnessy asked Hanecak about the potential for the school district investing in a “digital backpack” program.“The issue we have with that is finances, and that will be a struggle,” Hanecak said. “Getting grades, test scores and putting homework assignments on the web so parents can keep track on students, all of that costs money.”Board member Roberts asked Hanecak if the results of the fiscal 2009-2010 audit surprised him.“Yes, and no,” Hanecak said. “Yes because we have been told for so long that we were good, and in the end it turns out we were lacking some documentation. Moving forward, at the finance meetings, we need to ask if it’s purely documentation that’s the problem or whether or not something was left out.”Hanecak originally was chosen to serve on the board in 2010 when he was named as a replacement for John Rogers.