“There are various elements of the building that are hard and beyond what would have been and what we would have done 10 years ago”, says Brotman.
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The new Sandy Hook Elementary School opened to the public Friday evening, almost four years after the Newtown school massacre.
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. Construction on the school began in 2014 and more than 500 students from pre-K through fourth grade are expected to attend.
Sandy Hook Elementary will be filled with students again this August.
The architect is Svigals + Partners, and the construction manager is Consigli Construction. There are no plans to erect a permanent victims’ memorial at the school, District Superintendent Joseph V. Erardi Jr. said, yet the school will be guarded, with security measures like bulletproof windows and a main security entrance accessible through a key access at the foot of the school’s driveway.
The old school was demolished in the year following the massacre; the footprint of that school is now a parking lot.
The only sense of familiarity some of the returning students will have is Shelley the turtle, who’s waiting for school to start in her brand new aquarium.
“Our role now, as adults and leaders, is to bring this new, attractive place into its rightful status as the SHS of the present and future”, said Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra.
Classroom doors at the gated school have deadbolt locks and the glass is impact resistant. The new building was constructed to look very different from the old one. According to the New York Times, Lisbeth Kuroski, a special education aide at the nearby Reed Intermediate School, called the opening bittersweet.
While the thought of the tragedy remains, the new Sandy Hook Elementary School is a marvel.
Because of retirements and transfers, about 60 percent of the staff members from the original Sandy Hook are still with the school, he said. This fall, the new building will be open for students once again.
Ms Gombos, whose predecessor Dawn Hochsprung was among those killed, said: ‘There have been some tears, but I think after they spend about an hour or so here, they feel like it’s going to be an unbelievable learning space for kids’.
Erardi said he still meets with affected families to discuss how they want their loved ones to be remembered at the school.
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Julia McFadden, an architect who also helped design the school, said there is a duck theme throughout the school. Sadly, at St. Rose’s Cemetery, less than a mile from the school, there lay many first graders who will never return to school again.
