NY schools to mark remembrance day for Sept. 11 terror attacks

ALBANY — The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks will be the focus of schools statewide Wednesday morning.

A new state law encourages school districts to have a brief moment of remembrance on the morning of Sept. 11.

“We owe it to those we lost and to the countless heroes who ran toward danger that day and the days that followed to do everything we can to keep their memory alive,” said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in signing the bill strongly supported in the legislature earlier this year.

Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks by terrorists who hijacked passenger airliners and struck the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon. Another crashed in a Pennsylvania field 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh after passengers rushed the terrorists.

The remembrance is also for the thousands of first responders and the police, fire and other personnel and volunteers who risked their own health and safety to help search for survivors and sort through the rubble afterward.

“Students graduating from high school as part of the Class of 2019 were just newborns during the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001, and soon enough there will be no students in the national public school system born at the time of 9/11,” said the bill’s co-sponsor, Assemb. Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-Queens). By establishing the remembrance moment, “we may ensure that future generations will better understand this day and its significance in our history.”

Sen. Joseph P. Addabbo Jr. (D-Queens) said the bill he co-sponsored will make sure the tragedy and “the largest rescue operation our nation ever witnessed, will be forever acknowledged by school students too young to have witnessed this life-changing day."

By Michael Gormley

michael.gormley@newsday.com@GormleyAlbany

Michael Gormley has worked for Newsday since 2013, covering state government, politics and issues. He has covered Albany since 2001.