As Sandy Hook Elementary School students and staff return home and prepare to occupy a brand-new facility this fall, Principal Kathleen Gombos will be experiencing a first in her career. Over the course of her career, Ms Gombos recently told The Newtown Bee, she has never begun a school year in a brand-new facility.A National Model?The Newtown Bee about how post-12/14, school designers across the nation could look to the new Sandy Hook Elementary as a model.

In separate interviews, the SHES principal and Newtown Police Chief James Viadero each offered observations about the new school, and the role it might play in influencing how similar schools are designed and built in Connecticut and perhaps across the nation.

When Ms Gombos sat down for a brief chat August 5, she said she felt confident that the necessary fine tuning to complete the construction phase of the project ahead of opening day August 29 was nearly complete.

"We're in good shape. Or at least that's what the construction company tells me. They're working through the punch list, and our teachers amazingly have come in and most of them are already set up in their classrooms," she said. "It's been a whirlwind summer, but I'm not anxious about things not being in place for our kids on day one."

As she observed and consulted from the early stages of the facility's development, Ms Gombos said she was amazed how the collective vision of hundreds of contributors resulted in a design that may have few, if any, peers among public elementary schools, and how it seems to fit perfectly within its natural surroundings.

"I think I underestimated the architects' ability to make so many connections to nature with the building," she said. "This is going to be an unbelievable learning space for kids. The natural light, the trees, the aesthetics… it really is breathtaking."

At the same time, the school also offers students many advanced tools and technology to aid and enhance their learning.

"We have iPads in all our classrooms, and smartboards - but most of that came with us. There's some new technology equipment that is part of the new building, but much of it came with us from Chalk Hill," Ms Gombos said.

Even though students and staff were occupying an older facility at the former Monroe middle school building for three years following the 12/14 tragedy, Ms Gombos said the Sandy Hook PTA has been supporting the addition of new technology.

"We're looking forward to using Chromebooks [laptops] in our third and fourth grades this year, and my hope is that our outdoor classroom space gets used," she said. "I'm going to encourage teachers from our first day to schedule that into their teaching week."

The principal believes that by utilizing the school's natural offerings beginning August 29, staff and students will become more easily accustomed to learning without walls.

"It's really a beautiful and optimal learning space, but it's also going to take some getting used to," Ms Gombos said.

She also pointed to the unique hub on one end of the building with its interconnected gym, stage, cafeteria, and commercial kitchen as a key element that could easily become a standard design element as similar schools are designed elsewhere.

"One of the best things about that space is that our entire community can have events there," she said.

She is also curious to hear - or not hear - how well dozens of sound-absorbing panels hung in the cafeteria work.

For anyone who was not familiar with, or part of, the pre-12/14 Sandy Hook School community, Ms Gombos said she wants those Newtown residents to know how happy everyone is to be coming home.

"We're anxious to get the school year started, so excited to experience these new learning spaces, and we're so grateful for all the support we've gotten," she said. "You know, we're really excited about teaching and learning, but as adults, you can never walk in here and not take a moment of pause for all of those who lost their lives.

"Would I give it all back in a moment? Do I wish I was somewhere else and I could turn the clock back and wish this never happened? Absolutely."

When the first few calls for help began filtering out to surrounding communities on the fateful morning of December 14, 2012, Newtown resident James Viadero was a local police commissioner working as a supervisor with the Bridgeport Police Department. In that capacity, he was among hundreds of law enforcement responders who rushed to the scene.

He subsequently took a brief post as chief in Middlebury before replacing departing Chief Michael Kehoe here in Newtown, earlier this year.

During a press open house at the new school on July 29, he was among dozens of officials who attended. He took a few minutes to speak with

"As far as school security goes post-12/14, I think everybody in law enforcement has seen how school security is changing dramatically," he said.

The Newtown chief said prior to the local tragedy there was little or no integration between local schools and police forces beyond occasional visits, or exposure to officers through strategic in-school programs. He said it was actually after the school attack at Columbine High School in Colorado that police were starting to be sought out to partner with, and give their input toward, school security.

"But after 12/14, we're an integral part of school security that serves as a model here in Newtown and at Sandy Hook," the chief said. "On a day-to-day basis, we have [armed] school resource officers in our schools, and we're a part of their everyday activities in our schools. Administrators run the school, but I think they defer to our expertise and that's a relationship that seems to be serving the community in the best way it can.

"It's a model program," he added. "This building definitely serves as a model for the nation as far as what new schools will look like. There are things here that make a school secure, but they're subtle, and I think that's what we need. We need our children to come in and feel they're in a school setting. But as staff, and parents, and law enforcement professionals, we want to feel it is a secure school environment."

As far as the school's construction, Chief Viadero said Newtown police representatives were part of the process from before the groundbreaking, providing input on some of the most important things those key responders hoped to see integrated into the new facility.

"There was mutual respect on both ends," he said. "We wanted to make this a secure school environment, but we didn't want this to be an institution where you're constantly seeing officers out there. Then people may get the mindset that it's not a safe environment."

Chief Viadero also reflected on the unique personalities that have to be considered when vetting and hiring school security officers, especially the SSOs who are armed when on duty.

"By statute, they are all retired law enforcement. But while they possess a skill set of law enforcement, it's a special individual who can come to work in a school every day," he said. "What I've seen here and across the community in the past couple of years are individuals who not only have a direct relationship with the school staff, but with the students. It's a layer of security that establishes a relationship with students. I mean, some of these kids come in every day and give them a hug."

He said Newtown's use of SSOs can also serve as a model, and that while it is always a budgetary concern, for now the presence of these officers across the public and private school landscape in Newtown are still important.

"As children grow up, they know these officers, who he and she is as a person," he said. "When I was growing up, the only time we saw a police officer in our school was when somebody was leaving with them. Today, with the climate between police officers and the community, these students are building relationships with law enforcement.

"Does it cost money to sustain that? Yes," Chief Viadero acknowledged, "But you're getting a good value for that."