The awful grief that gripped the nation following the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in late 2012 is still with us, but almost three-and-a-half-years after the tragedy, parents and students will get their first glimpse of the new school building on Friday.
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The Associated Press reported that the new 86,000-square-foot school cost $50 million. Instead, the 86,000-square-foot school features a quiet area created to look like a tree house, three courtyards, a mosaic with the words “be kind”, and a moat-like rain garden.
It will include a gated driveway, state-of-the art video monitoring and bulletproof windows and doors.
In addition, the ground floor was built slightly elevated, making it hard for possible perpetrators to see inside classrooms. The new structure sits farther back on the property and the remaining concrete slabs – complete with their original dinosaur footprints – are in the new parking lot. The new school, like the old, will serve students from prekindergarten through fourth grade. Of those, 70 were students at the old school.
Local officials hope allowing people to take a look at the school this week will give students a “quiet, respectful, and appropriate opening as teachers and students return to the new school year” on August 29, Superintendent Joseph Erardi said.
The elementary school students will be distributed between three classroom wings and separated by three courtyards, according to the Sandy Hook website.
In the years after the massacre, Sandy Hook students have attended a school in nearby Monroe.
Melisa Horan found touring the new school with her now sixth-grade son cathartic.
The school hosted a media day Friday and showed the progress that has been made in its development. Only about 30 of them were in the building at the time, he said, attending the morning kindergarten session.
The new Sandy Hook campus has incorporated design elements that were recommended by the School Safety Infrastructure Commission, which was formed in early 2013 by the CT legislature to develop guidelines for bolstering school security. Others left through retirement or job changes, and a handful chose to transfer as part of their recovery process, he said.
The Sandy Hook massacre prompted President Barack Obama to launch an unsuccessful drive to tighten United States gun laws, after which he assailed the Republican-controlled Congress for blocking reforms that would have toughened background checks on gun buyers. “And the kids we toured with who are going there were just so excited to be there”.
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Erardi said school administrators will continue meeting with families of the victims confidentially about a permanent memorial in the town.
