Sandy Hook school opens four years later

ten to them,” said Julia McFadden, an architect with Svigals + Partners and the project manager.

The school was designed, officials said, to be attractive, environmentally friendly, conducive to learning and, above all, safe.

Visitors will need to pass through a driveway gate with a video intercom, across a moat-like raingarden and past two police officers and a video monitoring system to get inside. Its ground floor is elevated, making it harder to see inside classrooms from the outside. All the doors and windows are bulletproof.

In the years since the massacre, Sandy Hook students have been attending school in neighboring Monroe, which renovated a previously closed elementary school after the shooting.

There will be about 390 students enrolled this fall, and 70 of those, all now fourth-graders, were students at the old school when the shooting occurred, Erardi said. About 35 of them were in the building at the time, but none witnessed the shootings, he said.

Because of retirements and transfers, about 60 percent of the staff members from the original Sandy Hook are still with the school, he said. Others left through retirement or job changes, and a handful chose to transfer as part of their recovery process, he said.

The district will provide returning students and staff with special mental health resources to help them cope, Erardi said.