It’s not surprising that Principal Diane Daprocida started to get a little emotional when she spoke last week to a crowd, which included her own parents and children, about the new early childhood center on PS 94’s campus in Norwood.

The crowd was on hand for the grand opening of the new center and it was a happy event. But the last two years were trying for Daprocida and the rest of her school community.

The new center is essentially replacing a series of portable buildings on the PS 94 campus as well as a satellite building on Gun Hill Road that housed PS 94 kindergarteners. For two years, while construction on the center was ongoing, the school packed students into its main building and was forced to bus some of the kids zoned for PS 94 to PS 23 near St. Barnabas Hospital.

“We were packed on top of each other,” Daprocida said. “But the hardest part was turning families away.”

But now, with the opening of the center this fall, PS 94 is whole again. Daprocida said the school’s population is back up to 1,036, with capacity to comfortably take on another 40 students.

Having enough seats to accommodate the community was something Daprocida pushed hard for as a member of the project’s advisory committee. She wouldn’t budge until the building’s designers gave her three extra classrooms.

The center also includes a library, a lunchroom, an art studio and multi-purpose room that the school can use for gym classes or performances. For now, it houses kindergarteners as well as first and second graders.

Daprocida said the architects did a great job of making the space feel big, incorporating high ceilings and big windows, many that look out onto the green grass and trees in Woodlawn Cemetery, located right across the street.

The entrance to the building is a treat. The school worked with artist Kirsten Hassenfield to create an installation piece that was “fun” and “playful,” Daprocida said. The result is a series of colorful, hanging structures made of all sorts of items — dolls, teapots, artificial fruit, and gumball machines. Hassenfield calls the installation “Pixie Mix.”

PS 94 also received a new playground, which isn’t accessible by cars so teachers can’t park on it as they do at most schools (and the other half of the PS 94’s playground area). It’s surrounded by trees and is mostly open space, but there is also a new jungle gym.

Daprocida called the new facility “unbelievable” and she’s not alone. Parents and teachers were all giddy about the center.

Sherrie Bauer, a longtime kindergarten teacher who spent years in the Gun Hill Road building, said she’s “truly lucky” to be in the new center. “It’s great to be in an early childhood environment and we’re hoping it will allow these kids to really take off,” she said.

Nadine Hickson, who has a third grader at PS 94, called the new building “awesome.” Fellow parent, Myisha Lockett loved the “state-of-the-art library” and “fully-stacked kitchen.”

Outside of the new building in the new playground area, Daprocida looked around at all the happy parents. “This makes it all worth it,” she said.