A sign welcoming children from Sandy Hook Elementary school sits on the road in Monroe, Conn. (AFP/Getty Images)
MONROE, Conn. — Give peace a chance.
This bus-riding Sandy Hook Elementary School tyke didn’t need to utter a word to say what’s on the mind of everyone between Newtown and Monroe.
Traumatized Sandy Hook kids came back to class today for the first time since last month’s massacre that took the lives of 20 little kids and six educators.
About 400 kids from Newtown took over classrooms in nearby Monroe, at the site of what was once Chalk Hill Middle School, as their original school remains closed off as a crime scene.
The campus, seven miles away, has been decorated in “Sandy Hook Elementary School” signage as students reunited with their teachers today — many for the first time since that horrific Dec. 14 morning.
Fadil Bajraliu, 44, said his daughter Vanesa, 9, was excited to reunite with her teacher and fellow fourth-graders.
“She saw her classmates and teacher. She was happy to see them,” Bajraliu said. “Lately she’d started saying, ‘I’m bored at home. I want to go to school.’ She was definitely happy. She couldn’t wait to see her teacher and see her friends.”
Newtown schools superintendent Janet Robinson said teachers and staff are doing their best to make this a “normal day” for the children.
“We will go to our regular schedule,” she said. “We will be doing a normal day.”
There was a huge police presence on campus today, with cops checking IDs of parents as they approached school grounds to drop off kids.
“I think right now it has to be the safest school in America,” Monroe police Lt. Keith White said yesterday.
School officials encouraged parents to visit campus and even stay in classrooms or an auditorium throughout the day.
Sandy Hook dad Vinny Alvarez took a moment to tell his little girl’s third-grade teacher, Courtney Martin, how eternally grateful he’ll be for the instructor’s quick thinking.
Martin didn’t hesitate to lock her classroom door when bullets began to fly on Dec. 14, keeping her kids safe from rampaging gunman Adam Lanza.
“Everybody there thanked her in their own way,” Alvarez said.
Parents said they appreciated all the hard work to get the old Chalk Hill campus ready to roll this morning.
“It was amazing the way the took care of all this stuff in such a short time. They did a great job. They’ve been working days and nights just to make the kids feel comfortable, make them feel safe,” said Bajraliu, adding that he and his wife tried to play off this day of school like any other.
“We don’t want her asking questions like ‘What’s going on? Why are we doing this?’ We wanted to treat this like just another day of school.”
With Post Wire Services