AT 9:03 A.M., MILLIONS OF AMERICAN CHILDREN WERE SITTING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
Some were doing morning work.
Some were changing classes.
Some were saying the Pledge.
Some were watching televisions their teachers had suddenly turned on.
Some were too young to understand why all of the air had suddenly been sucked out of every room. Why the adults around them had gone quiet.
On September 11, 2001, nearly 48 million children were enrolled in America’s public schools. And as our country experienced one of the darkest mornings in its history, those schools became exactly what public schools have always been:
A place where America’s children gathered together.
Christian children.
Muslim children.
Jewish children.
Hindu children.
Children of every faith and no faith at all.
They watched the same terrible history unfold from the same classrooms.
Twenty-five years later, we remember the nearly 3,000 lives taken that day. We remember the first responders, the families who lost someone they loved, and an entire generation of children who remember exactly where they were when they learned the world could change in a single morning.
And we remember something else, too:
There is no religious test for belonging to America.
🇺🇸 Our public schools belong to all of our children.
And on September 11th— that is worth remembering.
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