After being elected to his first term on the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional school board last month, Alapakkam Manikandan was sworn in during the board’s reorganization meeting on April 22. Incumbents Richard Kaye and Randall Tucker were also sworn in to their second terms on the board.##M:[more]##
Board members unanimously elected Hemant Marathe to his fifth consecutive term as president, and also unanimously chose Robert Johnson as the vice-president, his third consecutive term.
Before the meeting, outgoing board member Patricia Bocarsly, who cited increases in her professional commitments and travel schedules as the reason for not seeking re-election, gave a tearful goodbye to administrators and board members. She told the audience she was proud of the board’s fiscal achievements, and of her efforts to help see that the construction referendum was passed.
“I fought for those classrooms at South, and they’re going to be built,” she said. Bocarsly also cited her work on helping to create the board policy manuals, and recalled her role in the adoption of fencing as a varsity sport at the school.
Bocarsly said one of the more rewarding aspects of serving on the board is seeing the board’s work making an impact on the children. She gave an anecdote about her time on the board’s curriculum committee in which a group of elementary students visited the meeting and read their writing.
But one of the hardest things about it is leaving unfinished business behind when a term is up, she said, pointing to the exceptionality review committee, on which she served and which was presenting its findings later that night. She also pointed to the math review and pending science review and seeing the implementation of Infinite Campus, a new interactive student information database. Even though these things are hard, she said, the good thing about having unfinished business is that “there shouldn’t be a point where a board member should say the work is done.”
