MONROE, Conn. — Sandy Hook Elementary School students returned to classes Thursday in Monroe.
Students, teachers and staff are “going back to business as usual,” said Monroe Police Lt. Keith White on Thursday.
Students were excited as they entered their new school building and reunited with friends, White said.
Attendance was very good Thursday, the first day classes resumed after 20 students and six women were killed in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook in Newtown on Dec. 14, White said.
Most students arrived by bus, White said. Parents were invited into the school as new Sandy Hook Principal Donna Page, Newtown School Superintendent Janet Robinson and members of theNewtown Board of Education greeted students and parents, White said.
Parents met with school officials and law-enforcement members as students resumed a regular school day, White said.
Once a middle school, the Chalk Hill School in Monroe has been given a makeover and renamed Sandy Hook Elementary School - a nod to its new occupants.
Newtown’s neighbor Monroe offered use of Chalk Hill, which was closed almost two years ago.
The new Sandy Hook school is about 7 miles south of the old school.
White reported that buses arrived on time Thursday and there were no major issues.
In other developments, an administrative worker at the medical examiner’s office has been placed on a paid leave pending an investigation of a Dec. 16 incident in which she is alleged to have allowed her husband, who is not an authorized employee of the office, view the body of mass killer Adam Lanza.
Sources said Jean Henry, a processing technician at the Farmington, Conn., facility, and her husband entered the refrigerated room in which bodies are kept pending autopsies on the morning of Lanza’s autopsy.
They went to the gurney where Lanza lay, then Henry unzipped the bag so her husband could look at him for a moment. She closed the bag and they left the room, sources familiar with situation told The Hartford Courant on Wednesday.
Henry and her husband, who doesn’t work for the state, openly went in and out of the refrigerated area, and at least one other employee was aware of what was happening, one of the sources said.
After H. Wayne Carver II, the chief state medical examiner, learned of the matter, he placed Henry on leave about four days later, the sources said. An internal complaint was filed, they said.
Henry’s leave was still in effect Wednesday and was imposed to allow for an administrative investigation of the circumstances surrounding the allegations against Henry.
Reached by phoneWednesday, Henry had no comment.
She was instructed in a letter from Carver to stay out of contact with work but to be available to answer questions from state labor-relations personnel conducting the inquiry, a source said.
Carver also declined any comment Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Hearst Connecticut Media Group apologized Thursday because one of its newspapers ran an ad for an antique-gun show next to an article about the Newtown school shooting.
A statement released by Publisher Paul Farrell said the ad’s placement in The Advocate of Stamford was the result of an oversight.
Information for this article was contributed by Jon Lender and Dave Altimari of The Hartford Courant and by The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 01/04/2013