Police surround Sandy Hook Elementary School during the Dec. 14 shooting (Wikimedia Commons)

About 500 Sandy Hook Elementary students and teachers returned to school on Thursday for the first time since the December 14 shooting that left 20 children and six staff members dead in Newtown, Conn.

Classes were held 7 miles away at the former Chalk Hill Middle School, which has since been renamed Sandy Hook Elementary. According to USA Today, teams of about 80 volunteers cleaned and repainted the school and arranged the students' old desks, backpacks and other belongings that had been left behind during the shooting.

Fox News reported that the classrooms were replicated as much as possible, down to the wall colors and locations of bookshelves and cubby holes.

On Wednesday, students and parents were welcomed to the new school with an open house, where they received gift boxes with toys and reunited with their teachers, according to Fox News.

SEE ALSO: Connecticut Elementary School Shooting Victims Identified

"We will go to our regular schedule," Newtown Superintendent Janet Robinson said as students arrived for their first day on Thursday. "We will be doing a normal day."

Robinson also said that mental health counselors continue to be available for anyone who needs them.

Julian Ford, a clinical psychologist at the University of Connecticut who helped counsel families in the days immediately following the shooting, told The Los Angeles Times on Thursday that the feel of familiarity is important for the children.

"When they see the classroom, it is not going to take them right back to the terrible incidents that happened," he said, "but to all the experiences in the prior part of the school year -- most of which will be very reassuring and positive for them."

According to USA Today, the students' new principal, Donna Page, who served as Sandy Hook's principal for more than a decade before retiring in 2010, replaced Dawn Hochsprung, one of the first victims by the gunman, Adam Lanza.
 

SEE ALSO: Newtown Gunman's Father Claims Son's Body

"I want parents and families enduring the loss of their precious children to know their loved ones are foremost in our hearts and minds as we move forward," Page said in a note on the Sandy Hook school's website. "Your strength and compassion (have) been, and will continue to be, an inspiration to me and countless others as we work to honor the memory of your precious children and our beloved staff."

Police have not yet released details as to whether Adam Lanza had a motive for the shooting which killed his mother, himself and the 26 victims at Sandy Hook Elementary.

The school has been heavily guarded by police who will remain until further notice, according to The Washington Post.

"I think right now it has to be the safest school in America," Monroe police Lt. Keith White said.

Find more Neon Tommy coverage on Sandy Hook here.

Reach Executive Producer Paige Brettingen here. Follow her here.