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Regeneration

Inside the demolished and rebuilt Sandy Hook Elementary School

The scene of the 2012 Newtown massacre is now a high-tech building that will open in the autumn.

Newtown Shooting New School The school was built with a $50 million grant from the state of Connecticut. Mark Lennihan Mark Lennihan

NEARLY FOUR YEARS after suffering one of the worst mass shootings in US history, an elementary school in Connecticut will re-open in a brand-new, high-tech building this autumn.

The old Sandy Hook Elementary School was demolished in 2013 after a crazed gunman fatally shot 20 children and six educators in December 2012 in just five minutes before killing himself.

The new Sandy Hook School, which will feature heavy-duty windows and sophisticated video surveillance, was built with a $50 million grant from the state of Connecticut in the small leafy town of Newtown, two and a half hours by car northeast of New York City.

wochit News / YouTube

The school will open quietly in September after the summer holidays, although local media were taken on a guided tour today.

“Despite its birth from a horrible tragedy, Sandy Hook School will be a place full of laughter, love, and learning,” Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra said.

Built on the old site, the new school has a completely different layout designed to make maximum use of the surrounding nature.

Newtown Shooting New School A classroom of the new Sandy Hook Elementary School. Mark Lennihan Mark Lennihan

“We’re asking everyone to give us the space we need to focus entirely on teaching and learning when we return for our first day of school,” Superintendent Joseph Erardi, the town’s top school official, said.

The new premises will be able to welcome 464 pupils and up to another 84 children in a half-day, pre-kindergarten program.

Newtown Shooting New School In the 2004 massacre, 20 children and six educators were gunned down. Mark Lennihan Mark Lennihan

The Sandy Hook massacre prompted President Barack Obama to launch an unsuccessful drive to tighten US gun laws, after which he assailed the Republican-controlled Congress for blocking reforms that would have toughened background checks on gun buyers.

© – AFP 2016

Read: Sandy Hook Elementary school evacuated after fake bomb threat >

Read: Police release Sandy Hook shooting documents and evidence photos >

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