Andrew Returns

As closing time approached and the crowd dwindled, Suzy and Jim Irwin had a chance to chat with Suffield’s popular cartoonist, Rick Stromoski, who offered his original art work at the SMS Christmas Boutique on December 12. Among other projects, Rick is now offering Andrew’s Journal, an online publication of “Special insights into a special little boy.” Remember Andrew in Soup2Nuts?

Superintendent’s Update

The Superintendent’s FY2021 Budget Recommendation was presented to the Suffield Board of Education at its December 5, 2019 meeting. The $36,509,475 proposal was a 2.71% increase over the 2019-2020 budget of $35,547,870. With fixed costs accounting for the largest percentage of the budget increase, significant efforts were made to put forth a modest proposal that was in alignment with the mission and goals of the Suffield Public Schools. The major initiatives for the 2020-2021 school year reflect our increasing demands for literacy instruction, Special Education programming, high school coursework, elementary STEM programming, high school guidance, and digital learning. In addition, funding has been requested to address the reoccurring maintenance needs of our school facilities.

Youth Programs

It’s Winter Reading time! Read, earn a free raffle ticket each week for a Grand Prize, and spin the wheel for fun giveaways! Sponsored by the Friends of Kent Memorial Library

Shop 350

Looking for Suffield themed gifts for the holidays? The 350th anniversary committee is selling logo sweat shirts and ball caps, a collectable ornament, and the Suffield 1869 map reproduction.

BFF: The Premiere of a New Musical

The machinery of adolescence is a topic that has been featured in thousands of forms of media for thousands of years, reflected on television screens, canvases, and frail rolls of paper. It is a theme with incredible longevity, but one that constantly requires new perspectives and techniques to maintain its relevance. This is a demanding standard, yet it is matched and exceeded by Suffield High School Drama Club’s production of the original musical BFF. With book and lyrics by SHS’s resident film and French teacher, Carl Casinghino, and music by his uncle, Robert Casinghino, the musical is an ambitious work that conveys the complex tangle of relationships that binds an average high school community both in the physical world and the amorphous digital realm. These two spheres are so integrated that the plot’s driving conflict emerges and escalates in the initial acts without many of the characters ever meeting in person, instead building animosity allegiances through text messages, which will be displayed to the audience through a projector.