Newtown, Connecticut (CNN)Sandy Hook Elementary will be filled with students again this August.
The rebuilt school bears no memories or resemblance of the old building that stood on the same property December 14, 2012. That was the day an armed man walked into the school and took the lives of 26 people -- 20 of them children.
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. Selectman Pat Llodra says Shelley has been with Sandy Hook Elementary for over a decade.
"When students come in that front door, they"re going to see their turtle," Lorda said. "Keeping something they love front and center ... makes them feel much more comfortable."
About 70 of the new fourth-graders who were kindergartners at the old Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 will be returning this school year, joined by more than half the old faculty members. Others faculty members have retired, transferred or did not return because of personal reasons.
Llodra says the goal was to "create a space at the highest and best of levels of a marriage between art and architecture that honored every single victim, every family, every parent, every student."
The events of December 14, 2012, will never be forgotten, he said.
"Let me say unequivocally that we would trade in a minute this beautiful new school for the more familiar and aged Sandy Hook school built in the "50s if we could just change the past," Llodra said.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/29/us/sandy-hook-school-reopening/index.html
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