It was a nice, easy and very new day at Amy Biehl Community School at Rancho Viejo — and no child was left behind when it came time to pick the kids up at the end of the day.

Amy Biehl — named after the Santa Fe High School valedictorian who was killed in South Africa in 1993 while advocating for voter rights — is the newest school in the district. It officially opened Monday, the first day of school for students.

"It's like having a new grandchild," Principal Pam De La O said Monday. "I want it to be the best school there is." De La O started working in the Santa Fe Public Schools in 1982 as an elementary support teacher and an after-school programs supervisor and worked her way up to teacher, and then assistant principal, before becoming principal of Sweeney Elementary School in 2004.

The 62,000-square-foot, eco-friendly Amy Biehl was built to help ease crowding at both Sweeney and Piñon elementary schools. De La O said the school has pre-registered 475 students, though it may end up having a few more or less than that once the dust settles by the week's end.

Students also came from Turquoise Trail Elementary School, El Dorado Community School, Mission Viejo Christian Academy and Santo Niño Regional Catholic School — as well as from schools outside the district. One girl said she just moved to Santa Fe from Las Cruces; another said she was a transplant from New York City.

Students spent much of Monday taking tours of their new school and participating in team-building, get-acquainted-with-one-another exercises.

In Candace Harrison's sixth-grade class, for instance, the students were working on writing a group poem. Asked what the best thing about their new school is, most students said either "the teachers!" or "having class outside!"

Each of the roughly 30 classrooms has its own exterior courtyard — as well as a storage closet, a small kitchenette area, an intercom system, and a SMART board (an interactive white board that can be hooked up to teacher or student computers).

The school sports shiny new floors, smudge-free walls, new water fountains, new books in the library, new computers and an array of renewable-energy assets, including a geothermal heating system, skylights, translucent windows, and a reliance on groundwater and rainwater recycling.

"I think it's beautiful," second-grade teacher Melissa Kovac said while leading her students on a tour. "The kids are anxious to start using the SMART boards."

Molly Long, a fourth-grade bilingual teacher who had another line of students touring the school, warned them of the danger of picking up germs by leaning their hands on the walls.

Long, like the other Amy Biehl teachers, put together a special welcoming gift for her students. In Long's case, it was a brightly wrapped bag containing a pen, a hand sanitizer and a lollipop.

"I can't believe how many teachers went into their own pockets to buy something for their classroom to make it more user-friendly," said Edward Dixon, senior superintendent for Cameron Construction, which built the school. Dixon will be on hand through the opening week to make sure everything goes OK.

"It's a clean, safe environment for the kids," he said. "And frankly, I'm surprised and very happy that the first day went as well as it did."

Art teacher Kim Leonard — who got to spend Monday preparing her room, since students will first take her class today — said her kiln room has no ventilation, but otherwise things are looking good.

"Kids have a lot of respect for a new building, and I think that will carry over here," she said.

Students in each grade will take part in an hour of music, art and library every week, allowing Amy Biehl teachers a much-needed three hours to interact with one another and engage in professional development opportunities.

De La O acknowledged there were two parents who voiced concern during the day — one about a missing desk for her child (a desk was found) and another regarding a child being placed in a combination class of first- and second-graders.

At the end of day, all the students got on a bus or jumped into a car with family members. One boy cried when he got separated from his sister at the bus pickup station (they were reunited quickly), and another girl said she didn't want to take the bus home at all. "I want to stay here," she said.

De La O thought the first day went smoothly. "I was pleasantly surprised," she said. "Today was wonderful. Maybe tomorrow will be another story, but for a school that has just opened, where the kids didn't know the teachers and in some cases the teachers didn't know one another, I think everything went well."

But keep in mind that the kindergartners haven't arrived yet. Their first day is Thursday.

"Come back then if you want to hear crying," De La O said. "There's always at least one case of separation anxiety."

The school will host a public ribbon-cutting ceremony in late September, Superintendent Bobbie J. Gutierrez said Monday.

Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.