Carlo Allegri / Reuters

People walk past a makeshift memorial in Sandy Hook after the Dec. 14, 2012 shooting tragedy , in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 28, 2012.

Students from Sandy Hook Elementary School will go back to class Thursday in a borrowed building that one police official described as “the safest school in America.”

They will enter classrooms that have been furnished to look like the ones they left last month, as Adam Lanza carried out his massacre.

Desks and even abandoned backpacks and coats have been brought from Sandy Hook in Newtown, Conn., to the new school in Monroe, seven miles away.

Greeting the youngsters will be Donna Page, who was the principal of Sandy Hook until she retired in 2010. She agreed to come back after her successor, Dawn Hochsprung, was killed in the rampage.

Pupils and parents had a chance to tour the new building – an unused former middle school – on Wednesday after Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy met with teachers.

When they return at 9 a.m. Thursday, they will find counselors and extra police on hand.

“It feels extremely secure there,” Newtown School Superintendent Janet Robinson told reporters.

Police declined to say what security measures were in place, but Monroe Lt. Keith White said parents don’t have to worry.

“Right now, it has to be the safest school in America,” he said.

David Connors, 40, who has 8-year-old triplets, said he knows that sending his kids back to school will be difficult – but crucial.

“The past three weeks have been just crazy,” he told NBC Connecticut.  “Getting back to that sense of figuring out what the new normal is going to look like, I think, is important. Everyone is waiting for that to happen.”

His children, he said, are ready for the transition.

“They want to see their teacher. They want to see their classes. They want to get back into a routine,” he said.

The 500 students have not been in school since Lanza blasted his way into Sandy Hook on Dec. 14 and killed 20 children, six staffers and himself. He had earlier killed his mother.

Teachers from Newtown and Monroe spent their holiday break readying the new building for the children, and Robinson said it looks “cheerful and happy” and is decorated with paper snowflakes sent in from around the world.

She said the first day back will be as ordinary as possible, and the school will wait some time to honor teachers for their bravery during Lanza’s killing spree, which was largely confined to two first-grade classrooms.

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"There's certainly going to be children that are scared,” Thalia Andernen, a counselor with The Center of Hope, a nonprofit family support center, told NBC New York.

“They're going to be frightened and feel very insecure about going back, but a lot of them are going to be resilient.”

With no decision on what will happen to the Newtown building, the former middle school in Monroe has been renamed Sandy Hook Elementary, and the sign has been removed from the old school.

After so many funerals, there are signs of Newtown’s slow recovery. The large memorials that overtook the town have vanished and the Fire Department’s flag is back at full mast, although the station roof still bears a reminder of the toll: 26 stars.

In Monroe, officers were stopping cars that tried to stop near the new school and asking them to move on. Down the road, someone from the town had hung a sign for the Sandy Hook kids who will be coming there for the foreseeable future: "We Are So Proud Of You.”

Slideshow: Newtown school massacre

Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images

A nation mourns after the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history left 20 children and six staff members dead at Sandy Hook Elementary.

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Updated at 12:05 a.m. ET: President Barack Obama, the father of two daughters, brought "the love and prayers of a nation" Sunday to the people of Newtown, Conn., in an emotional address at an interfaith vigil after he visited with the parents of the 20 boys and girls who were killed Friday in their elementary school classroom.

Police said Adam Lanza, 20, killed his mother before driving to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he killed the children and six other women before committing suicide Friday.

"Newtown, you are not alone," the president said. "As these difficult days have unfolded, you have also inspired us with stories of strength and resolve and sacrifice."

The auditorium  filled to its capacity of about 900 well before the vigil got under way. Hundreds more streamed into the gymnasium, which was used for overflow.

Obama spoke from a simple podium adorned with the presidential seal, which was set up before a plain black backdrop on a black stage. The only other color was provided by the U.S. and Connecticut flags standing in the background and a small table bearing 26 small white votive candles, one for each of the victims at the school. 

Saying society would be judged by how well it fosters its children, the president said: "We're all parents. And they're all our children. This is our first task: caring for our children.

Obama asked whether America was doing enough and bluntly concluded: "No. And this must change."

"We can't tolerate this any longer," he declared. "These tragedies must end."

The president challenged the audience asking: "Are we prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is the price of our freedom?"

He vowed to "use whatever power this office holds to engage our citizens ... to save another child or another parent or another town" the anguish of Newtown.

Obama vows action on gun violence: 'These tragedies must end'

The president concluded by reciting the names of all 20 children who had been killed and asked God to bless them "with His holy comfort."

A White House official said Obama, who made no comment as he left the White House, personally wrote most of his planned remarks. He was accompanied aboard Air Force One by Reps. John Larson and Rosa DeLauro, both D-Conn.

In churches and stadiums, Americans mourn school shooting victims

The president was like thousands of other parents who have been drawn to Newtown from all over the country after the shootings.

"We can always pray for the goodness of people to just come out and try to bury this evil that's happened and hug our children a little better," Terry Polvay of Newtown said Sunday.

At My Place, a nearby restaurant, about three dozen people gathered to watch the vigil.

"I thought that Obama ... connected," said Aaron Urbain, 48, who works in information technology and has lived in Newtown for six years. "The messages were all togetherness ... and I found comfort in that."

Afterward, the restaurant staff asked to hold a moment for all of the victims as well as the alleged shooter's mother, Nancy Lanza, who was a regular at My Place.

“Nancy was known by everybody because she was a nice person,” said Carlos Diaz.

Miranda Leitsinger, Tom Winter and Jay Gray orosebudf NBC News contributed to this report.

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