Suffield Board of Education Discusses School Officer, Testing

pulled double duty Tuesday night, hosting both the town's Republican Primary and the Suffield Board of Education's meeting. The board discussed college testing, the role of the school resource officer, trips abroad and in-state and changes to student transitions through the school system.

School Resource Officer Terry Antrum shared his passion for his work with the board as part of Superintendent Karen Baldwin's regular report to the board.

While a major component of Antrum's job is making sure a safe environment exists at all four schools, it's only a part of his role.

"This job is more than just keeping kids safe."

Antrum, with 12 years in law enforcement and eight of those in Suffield, pointed out his many roles in the school system including mentor, advisor, teacher and liasion between the schools and the police.

With a strong tradition of working with children, including his time at UConn, as a big brother in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program and coaching school sports, Antrum told the board how happy he is to positively influence Suffield's students.

Eating lunch with students, teaching federal and state law in civics classes, establishing mentoring relationships with individual students and supervising the town's police explorer program are among the duties he happily performs.

Antrum called his choice to persue Suffield's school resource officer position "one of the best decisions I've made."

Antrum was complimented on his work by meeting attendees including Suffield Director of Youth Services Peter Black.

"Terry is the finest [school resource officer] I've worked with," he said. "We're really lucky as a community to have him."

Suffield High School Principal Donna Hayward and Ned Sullivan, a guidance counselor at the high school, presented the results of the PLAN test recently taken by SHS sophomores. The PLAN test simulates the ACT test, a popular college admissions tool.

The 192 sophomores who took the test scored between one and two points higher than the national standard, although Sullivan pointed out the true value of the test is exposing students to the ACT and helping them improve their scores for the real test.

“The students get a very comprehensive score report,” Sullivan said, noting that the data helps inform individual students where to focus their improvement efforts.