School-board member resigning

WINSTED — After facing recent mounting fiscal concerns, the Winchester Board of Education has another new challenge ahead of it: finding a new board member.

Current school board member John Rogers during an interview with The Journal on Monday confirmed that he would officially resign from his position later this month.

Rogers, a Democrat elected to the board during last November’s municipal elections, has missed a number of board meetings recently. He said he would soon be moving out of Winsted into neighboring New Hartford.

While he would be maintaining partial ownership of his Coe Street home here, Rogers said he would no longer be a full-time resident of the town.

“I won’t be living there,� Rogers said. “And I just didn’t think it would ethically be correct to continue to sit on the board.�

He added that he will hand in his formal letter of resignation to Board of Education Chairman Kathleen O’Brien at their next regularly scheduled meeting, Aug. 17.

Rogers’ resignation comes at a difficult time for the board, which has faced weeks of continued criticism from town officials and residents regarding its fiscal oversight of the school district’s budget.

That criticism peaked in early July after Superintendent of Schools Blaise Salerno reported to the Board of Selectmen the district would finish at least $343,961 over its targeted spending amount of $18,376,187 for the 2009-10 school year.

Previous reports from the school administration to the selectmen and the school board had placed that number at about $120,000.

The Winsted Democratic Town Committee recently recommended Sean Melycher, who ran for the Board of Education last November, as Rogers’ replacement.

O’Brien, however, told The Journal that the school board has a well defined, step-by-step process in its bylaws that it must follow to select the replacement for a member who has resigned.

First the board advertises the opening. Second the board will take in letters of intent from residents interested in the post. Third the board as a whole will interview candidates. And in the fourth and final step, the board will vote to select and appoint a new member to serve out the remainder of Rogers’ term, which expires in November 2011.

“This process helps to take the politics out of it,� O’Brien said.

Rogers said he is hoping his replacement will be an independent candidate, and perhaps someone who is “not registered with either party.�

“When you become a member of the Board of Education, party membership goes right out the door,� he said, adding that all school board members must remember their priority and their focus must be what is in the best interest of the students.

“We’ve been elected to put the children first,� he said.

O’Brien said once she officially receives Rogers’ resignation, the process to find his replacement will move forward quite quickly.

“We’ll be trying to get it done by the end of August, beginning of September,� she said.

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