MONROE, Conn. (AP) — Sandy Hook Elementary School parent Vinny Alvarez says he took advantage of an open house at his daughter’s new school to thank a teacher who helped protect her class from a rampaging gunman.

Alvarez says the teacher, Courtney Martin, locked her classroom door and kept the children in a corner until it was safe to leave the building.

He was visiting the school in the neighboring town of Monroe, Conn., where Sandy Hook children are resuming classes Thursday for the first time since the Dec. 14 shooting that left 20 children and six educators dead.

Newtown Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson announced that the Sandy Hook staff decided that the students’ new school, the former Chalk Hill Middle School in Monroe, would be renamed Sandy Hook Elementary School.