Two High Schools Near Ground Zero Afterwards: May 21, 2002 by Ambika Kapur Photos by Aimée Sisco

Tuesday, September 11, 2001: A regular day for students at two high schools in downtown New York City. With backpacks slung over their shoulders, they filed into the classrooms of the colorful school buildings. A light buzz filled the rooms as students went about their daily routines. Math for some, gym for others. And then: a loud bang that shook the school walls.

Students at the High School of Economics and Finance and the High School for
Leadership and Public Service rushed to the windows. The view differed from classroom to classroom, but the reactions were the same: shock, horror, confusion and fear. In a government class on the third floor, students watched the attack live on television. On the tenth floor, they stood at the huge library windows and saw people falling from the towers. Some teachers, remembering the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, pulled down blinds to prevent panic. Others attributed the booming noise heard during second period to a car accident or the chemistry lab on fire and continued their lessons.

The attack could not be ignored for long. "I was about to head over to the World Trade Center to buy a battery for my watch when the first plane hit” says Ada Dolch, principal of the High School for Leadership and Public Service, located at Trinity Place, two blocks from what used to be the World Trade Center. The school was established in 1993 in collaboration with Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, to develop urban leaders specially trained in democratic principles. "I was in the lobby,” explains Dolch, an area that became an instantaneous command center, trying to make decisions with no real understanding of what was going on, trying to create a sense of calm, with hordes of people running in looking for safety. We had 500 kids upstairs, our teachers, our cooking staff, and our security officers. I remember I said a prayer because my sister worked in Tower 2, but I didn't think about her again until I got home at 4:30 p.m. I just couldn't, because if I'd stopped, I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on my kids."

After the second plane hit Tower 2,” Dolch continues, “there was an interlude—I realize now it was only 40 minutes, but it seemed like hours—we were planning, thinking, wondering: Where do we go? How do we move the kids out? What do we do about our girl in a wheelchair? Our girl who's blind? Our girl who's just had heart surgery?” Dolch consulted Patrick Burke, principal of the High School of Economics and Finance next door and they both decided to evacuate their buildings.

The High School of Economics and Finance, a public school that draws students interested in Wall Street careers, is located on Trinity Place, a block closer than the High School for Leadership and Public Service, to what used to be the World Trade Center.

Burke was sitting in his office on the 10th floor with a view of the towers behind him when the first building was hit. He heard a loud crashing sound and saw a storm of metal and fire blow out between the buildings. Assuming that it was a bomb, he immediately pushed the panic button to announce a shelter drill that students were trained for. All public schools are required to conduct 12 fire drills and 4 shelter drills during the school year. During a fire drill, students are asked to evacuate the building and a shelter drill requires them to stay indoors in designated areas. All the students and staff were now out of their classrooms and in the hallways waiting for their next set of instructions. But when the second plane hit and shook the building, he realized that this was no accident and something had to be done. That was when Burke led an orderly evacuation of the school, calmly announcing the route students and teachers should take to safety and going floor by floor to make sure no one was left behind.

Both Burke and Dolch led their students south from the school towards Battery Park. "Come on, students pretend you’re on the track team," urged a High School for Leadership and Public Service teacher, as students and staff marched along streets parallel to the Hudson River, distancing themselves from the school and trying to contact their parents. Many phone lines were busy or out of action The rare, working cell phone was passed around from friend to friend, costs forgotten. Relatives reached overseas were also frantic.

As Dolch and her students and staff were entering Battery Park, the first building collapsed. "Some people remember a roar; I remember a snapping, which must have been those girders. The noise seemed like it was just in my face, loud. I imagined a tsunami wave, as tall as those buildings. Then the black cloud came and we sucked in that stuff; then it became gray and then this white snow. We picked up and started walking towards the bridges to get outside of Manhattan.” Burke and his students had also barely reached Battery Park when the mountain high avalanche of smoke from the first building came at them, “turning morning to midnight.” When it settled, everything was gray, like it had snowed,” says Burke. “From there, the teachers and students dispersed, trying to get home somehow.”

The students from both schools were among thousands of New Yorkers fleeing towards home. Some took ferries to relatives’ homes in New Jersey, while others walked across the Queensborough and Brooklyn Bridges. Manhattan residents invited classmates from other boroughs to spend the night with them.

“The teachers and the kids were the real heroes,” says Burke. “In a time of crisis, the instinct to take care of your kids came through and the teachers naturally protected their charges to ensure their safety.” Dolch also praised the teachers in her school for their courage and service during this emergency.

Both schools were moved to different locations for a few months following the attack. Neither of them had major structural damage, but school officials were concerned about air quality and safety and wanted to conduct tests before they reopened the schools. The High School for Leadership and Public Service was temporarily housed at the High School of Fashion Industries, three miles away, from September 20, 2001 to January 30, 2002, and the High School of Economics and Finance was relocated to Norman Thomas High School in midtown Manhattan for five months. This was a difficult time for both principals, as well as teachers and students.

High School of Economics and Finance students were forced to attend school on an altered schedule, from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., because there wasn’t enough room in the building for students from both schools to be present at the same time. In addition to the new schedule, students had to adjust to a different school environment. The new site was larger and older than the one they had left behind, they now had to pass through metal detectors as they entered the building and above all, there was a sense of uncertainty hanging over them about when, or even if, they would return to their home turf.

The High School for Leadership and Public Service also faced many problems in their temporary location. For weeks, the teachers had to make do with no books or even chalk. Instead of having their own classrooms, the teachers had to switch rooms at the beginning of each 30-minute period, reduced from the normal 40-minute class time. But Dolch says that the worst part was the loss of the school's focus. "We have a very specific program with a large public service component and, suddenly, that was no longer the case," she says. "We had to abandon our mission just to make sure that basic academics got covered, which was hard." The school also had poor attendance. “A lot of students didn’t want to come to school and grades were slipping," she adds.

After months of doubling up with another high school, faculty, staff and students at the High School for Leadership and Public Service were relieved to get back to their own building on Trinity Place on January 30, 2002. “We spent four-and-a-half months at the High School of Fashion Industries, and that was a very difficult journey,” says Dolch. “It wasn't our home. Every day that we couldn't return created a greater loss. All the gifts and therapy in the world weren't helping us move ahead. Moving ahead meant that we had to go home.”

All but 13 of the 550 students returned to the High School for Leadership and Public Service when it reopened. They were greeted by security checks, friendship bracelets from students in Canada, and dozens of TV cameras. “The kids are phenomenal,” says Dolch. “They wanted to come back to school—because we all experienced this together. Their families at home weren't ready. I keep saying, we're moving forward. That’s my mantra. I tell them, You are history-makers. People will look to you and ask you to tell the story. And I tell them, if you fall apart, you will never be able to help this world be rebuilt. Are we moving ahead quickly? No. We have lost a lot of the academic year. But we will be working hard to make up the lost time.” Dolch is determined to get back to basics or “kids will discuss this for the rest of their lives instead of doing math.” That doesn’t mean the tragedy has not become a learning opportunity. A health class is examining what kids inhaled in the explosion. In English class, they are writing about their feelings. “It’s part of our recovery,” says Dolch.

As part of the social studies curriculum, 9th grade students planted nearly 3,000 tulip bulbs in Battery Park. The students and teachers felt that planting the tulip bulbs was very meaningful for everyone participating, as Battery Park had provided thousands of people, including themselves, the open space they needed when evacuating from the fire, smoke, debris and terror of that day. “Taking the time to plant the flowers allowed us to remember our personal experiences on September 11th and to overcome some of our anxieties and fears by seeing Battery Park in a positive light. For our school, this truly represented a day of remembrance, healing, growth, leadership and commitment to public service, the theme of our school,” says a teacher at the high school. “It is very therapeutic to go back there because that was our refuge," adds Dolch. “The tulips look beautiful.”

The High School of Economics and Finance reopened on February 28, 2002. Six hundred students—back in the building for the first time since they were evacuated on September 11—were welcomed by New York City Chancellor of Schools Harold Levy, the principal and staff. To prepare them for their return, the students were invited to the school earlier that week, over two days in four shifts, divided by grade. They were taken to the eighth-floor cafeteria, where many of the kids ran to the window to look directly down at Ground Zero, now a maze of trucks and earth-moving equipment. Some students averted their eyes, making a point of sitting at tables with their backs to the view. The staff had lined the windows with plants as a way to soften the view. After a free breakfast or lunch, depending on the session that they attended, the students went down to classrooms for group sessions with therapists, part of a trauma-prevention program administered by St. Vincent’s Hospital.

"Our kids are resilient, but they saw more than they should have," says Burke. "They saw bodies falling. We evacuated after the second plane hit, and weren't that far when the towers fell. This will have latent effects on them and we are making sure that there are guidance personnel available to them from the Superintendent’s Office and St. Vincent’s Hospital on an ongoing basis.” The school’s enrollment went down by about 100 students, as some students dropped out and transferred following the attack.

Still, “Coming back to the school has been very positive for the students,” says Burke. Most of them are in classrooms that don’t have windows, so students are shielded from the constant reminder that the buildings do not exist. Instruction is back on a normal basis, but students have to work harder to make up for lost time. Burke is hopeful, however, that tutoring sessions on Saturdays and after school will help. “But with fewer minutes of class time for five months,” he says, “it will be next to impossible to make up for all the time lost.” Still, he expected students to be ready for the Regents exams, the critical state tests that are administered towards the end of the school year.

The students at both high schools seem genuinely happy to be back in their own environments. Even though the world has changed around them, many voiced the feeling that it was like coming home when they returned to their schools. At both the schools, the buzz of a regular school day goes on inside, while clean-up crews work in the “pit” outside. Comments from the students reflect their experiences on September 11th, and how the world has now changed for them.

“I was in English class when I heard the first crashing sound. We thought the chemistry lab was on fire. But then there was another crashing sound and this time, the building shook. Then we were scared.”
Veda, 10th grade, High School for Leadership and Public Service

“What I think has changed is the relationships between students. We’ve become much closer—almost like family, more than anything else.”
Naureen, 12th grade, High School of Economics and Finance

“Yearbook was much easier to do this year—we are already done in April, which is very rare! This school is where we started and this is where we will end—this makes us feel better.”
Cynthia, 12th grade, High School of Economics and Finance

“Fashion was so overcrowded. I was stressed all the time. I was the happiest person when they told us we were coming back to our school on January 30th.”
Anamolca, 10th grade, High School for Leadership and Public Service

“You know things change, people change and you have to learn to change yourself.”
Julia, 12th grade, High School of Economics and Finance

“After September 11, I started wondering more about our government. There were so many clues before this tragedy happened and they didn’t do anything about it. Why did they start taking more security measures at airports and other places only afterwards?”
Christine, 10th grade, High School for Leadership and Public Service

“I still get upset and shocked when I look outside and see the towers gone. I can’t believe that it happened. I can’t believe people have so much hatred in the world.”
Julia, 12th grade, High School of Economics and Finance

“Coming back to school and looking across the block and seeing that the two towers that we used to hang out at all the time were gone was especially hard.”
Obenna, 11th grade, High School of Economics and Finance

“Osama bin Laden is the future Hitler. Hitler was powerful in spreading his message of hatred and Osama bin Laden is also powerful in speaking to his followers. We should put an end to this hatred.”
Ana, 10th grade, High School for Leadership and Public Service

The High School of Economics and Finance and the High School for Leadership and Public Service, along with Stuyvesant High School, which is also located near Ground Zero, received grants of $100,000 each in honor of their teachers and principals. In a statement released by Carnegie Corporation of New York to announce these grants, Vartan Gregorian, president of the Corporation said, "These high schools are only now returning to normal and we believe a grant to support the principals of the three schools for a project chosen in consultation with the teachers will make a difference in these important school communities." The schools that became temporary homes for the dislocated students and teachers of these three downtown high schools will receive grants of $50,000 as well.

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