BLOOMFIELD — Ana Grace Márquez-Greene would have been a junior in high school this year. But the 6-year-old who loved dancing over walking and singing over talking was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.

The first day of classes at the new CREC Ana Grace Academy of the Arts Elementary Magnet School was held Wednesday. Construction wrapped on the new building created in her honor in the spring after COVID-19 delays.

The entryway to the building has high ceilings and is flooded with light from spotless windows lining the hallways. A group of students and teachers playing jazz instruments is louder than the voices in the vestibule. That works because everyone, including the visiting U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, stops to listen.

“This is greater than any vision I would have had,” said Nelba Márquez-Greene, mother of Ana Grace. “It’s because of the relationships. You can have a building without a soul. This building has a soul because of the people.”

Over 830 students are enrolled there this school year, including 120 preschool students. There are about 500 in elementary school grades and 300 in middle school grades. About half are from Hartford, with the rest from other surrounding towns.

Nelba Márquez-Greene, her son Isaiah, CREC staff and Murphy, D-Conn., toured the school midday Thursday. The new school year excitement surged in the classrooms, where Murphy participated in a dance class, listened in on an orchestra practice and fielded questions from a room of fourth-graders.

“Why did I want to become a senator? This is hard. You have to travel, you have to pass these tough laws,” Murphy said. “Well, I wanted to make my state a better place.”

The kids pressed him on topics ranging from how to end child hunger to what taxes are for to whether he plans to run for president.

“I don’t think I do,” Murphy said of seeking the nation’s top office. “I will tell you why. Your life changes when you become president. The Secret Service is around the president. You can’t even go to the grocery store without like a thousand security people traveling with you.”

Patricia Phelan, principal of the school, said that she and other school leaders think about Ana Grace’s legacy “all the time.”

“We knew that Ana loved to sing and dance, and we say arts are our language here,” Phelan said. “We make sure students are exposed to as much as they can possibly be exposed to.”

In elementary school, students at the academy take classes in a range of different arts concentrations, but choose a focus in middle school.

All elementary students take an arts class, a music class, a theater class, a dance class and a physical education class week. By third grade, all students are learning to play a string instrument Suzuki style.

In addition, all students have small group music instruction and a large group performance experience.

“Most students travel an hour in the morning to get here and an hour to get home,” Phelan said. “We tell people it’s worth the trip.”

Murphy hailed the opening of the school as a successful use of federal funds on a local level. He also addressed the difficulties in recruiting teachers, particularly teachers of diverse backgrounds.

“We created a program here in Connecticut supported by the federal government that pays people to be here and be a helper-teacher while they go to school to get their teacher degree,” Murphy explained to the class. “One of the things we need to do if we want to help people to come into teaching is help people afford to get that teaching degree.”

The students in the class went around the room and told Murphy of their shared love for their teacher. One student said that he was one of the first male teachers they’ve ever had. Another called him “patient and kind.”

“We need about 100 more of these in this building alone,” Nelba Márquez-Greene said.

Márquez-Greene said she was grateful Murphy stopped by.

“This is a great way to build a legacy for our child,” Márquez-Greene said. “That’s on the backdrop of, she should still be here.”