Regional School Unit 5 officials tried to show students, especially the younger ones, that Monday was a routine day – even though the shocking news of the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., was still reverberating throughout Maine and the world.

Superintendent Shannon Welsh said the school district’s approach was to treat the day as a normal one, with support staff available if any student or staff member needed it. She said she felt that approach was the best, because there were a number of students who had no knowledge of what went on.

“Some kids had not been told anything by the family’s choice,” Welsh said. “(While) some kids had a great amount of detail.”

Twenty-six people, including 20 elementary school children, were murdered on Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary. Police say the 20-year-old gunman killed himself at the school.

Welsh sent an email Monday morning to parents outlining how the district planned on dealing with the issue.

“After working through the emotional issues, our next thoughts are about the safety of our own children and staff,” Welsh said. “We are addressing all of these concerns on several levels. As a district, we have always taken security issues seriously. Each building has a crisis plan to respond to a variety of potential situations. We expect to review these plans in light of this recent tragedy to consider what more might be done.

“Please know that your children are precious to us and we take our commitment to their education and safety very seriously.”

Welsh added that each school has a safety plan in place and undertakes regular drills to make sure that each school has the best possible response to emergency situations.

Getting kids into the normal flow of the school week was the best thing that the schools could do, Welsh said

“What we know is that kids really do best when they have an established routine, and as soon as they can get back into that established routine they feel more comfortable,” she said.

Elementary school principals throughout the district said that in the early going Monday, it seemed that students were settling into the routine of the week without too many problems related to the Connecticut shootings.

“The mood of the school is that it’s a typical school day,” said Will Pidden, the principal of Durham Community School, which has children from kindergarten through eighth grade. “We’ve had a relatively typical start to the week.”

Like all administrators in the district, Pidden said he met with his staff before the students arrived, and he added that while there was support in place for kids who needed it, there didn’t seem to be any serious problems Monday morning.

Pidden said that since the shootings occurred on a Friday, there was an intervening weekend where families could discuss the issue before kids had to go back to school.

“Most families probably addressed the situation with their children in the way they thought best,” Pidden said.

Lisa Demick, the principal of the Pownal Elementary School, which has students from kindergarten through fifth grade, also said that her day started off with a meeting with her staff about how to respond to the situation.

“Our decision was to keep things as normal as possible and to take our lead on what the kids needed,” she said.

She said that on Monday morning, there wasn’t much talk about the incident among the younger students, though there was some among the fifth-graders, but it didn’t rise to the level where counseling staff was needed.

Tom Ambrose, the principal of Freeport’s Morse Street School, which has students in kindergarten through second grade, said that it was “business as usual” on Monday morning. In fact, he said the wintry weather was the big topic of conversation among the students there.

“They’re doing great,” Ambrose said. “They’re really excited about the snow. At the K-2 level, they’re just really excited about going outside.”