On Monday, Aug. 29, the new Sandy Hook Elementary School opened its doors to the students of Newtown, Connecticut for the first day of the school year. Four years after the massacre shooting that gripped the world and that has left 20 children and six teachers dead, the school community is ready to start a new chapter and put the tragedy behind it.
After the shooting, the old Sandy Hook Elementary School was torn down in 2013 and a new structure was built near the same site. As detailed in the official Sandy Hook website, the new school was designed with a sense of community. It was also intended to have a "regenerative, restorative, and healing elements of nature."
The new Sandy Hook Elementary School features facilities like canopies, bridges, tree houses and thresholds. It also has a mini forest where the kids can explore and play. It is a conducive environment for learning indeed, but as the Los Angeles Times reports, it is also a school where safety standards is primary concrern.
The new school is also installed with state-of-the-art security features in accordance with state guidelines and given what has happened. For one thing, the walls have been made thicker to withstand gunfire and the windows have been made bullet proof. The school also has video monitoring security facility and police officers will be making regular rounds around the campus. The state actually provided $50 million to rebuild Sandy Hook.
At the opening, 400 students stepped into their new and improved school, and from these group, 70 of the kids were witnesses to the shooting incident in December 2012. These kids are now in their fourth grade, per Fox 61. "Our role now, as adults and leaders, is to bring this new, beautiful place into its rightful status as the SHS of the present and the future," said school board head Pat Llodra in the report.
