Sandy Hook Elementary School continues to adjust to life after December 14, 2012, when a gunman opened fire and took the lives of 26 young students and faculty members, a tragedy that puts President Barack Obama in tears, and an event that closed the school for almost four years. Today [Saturday, July 30], school administrators gave an exclusive peek at the site before the Connecticut primary school reopens in August, via the New York Times.


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A completely new building with a nature theme and enhanced security will welcome back students to the campus. Since the incident, they have been receiving their education in Monroe, a town close to their old school in Newtown. And with today’s media preview, officials hope cameras and reporters will be absent from school when kids return. Superintendent Joseph V. Erardi Jr. told the Times, “The transition to the new school needs to be as seamless as possible for the children. That is why we are…asking everyone to give us the space we need to allow high-quality teaching and learning when we return for our first day of school.”

Almost 400 students will attend Sandy Hook, none of which include the class of first graders who witnessed the 2012 murders. Now fifth graders, they are too old for the school and will attend Reed Intermediate School. The only students who have not graduated and were present during the 2012 attack will return as fourth graders. Those children, like the rest of the current population, will enter bullet-proof classrooms and walk down hallways under surveillance. But their buses and carpools will drop them off at the same address that they once did in Newtown, Connecticut.

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