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. "Let me state unequivocally that we would trade in a minute this beautiful new school for the more familiar and ancient Sandy Hook school, built in the '50s, if we could just change the past," said Pat Llodra, the town's first selectman. Because of retirements and transfers, about 60 percent of the staff members from the original Sandy Hook are still with the school, he said. Sandy Hook Principal Kathy Gombos said she expects the transition to be difficult emotionally. The new Sandy Hook Elementary School opened to the general public for the first time Friday, containing no obvious memorials to the 26 people who died inside the old school nearly four years ago but created with them in mind.

Source: ABC News July 29, 2016 04:41 UTC