[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 178 (Thursday, December 20, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2375-E2376]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         TRIBUTE TO THE NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMUNITY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, December 20, 2001

  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay special 
tribute and to recognize the courage and professionalism of the New 
York City Public Schools community during the attack on September 11, 
2001.
  I know that none of us will ever forget where we were and what we 
were doing when the attacks on the World Trade Center occurred. For the 
New York City Public Schools community, the attacks were not something 
they watched on television, they were in the middle of the mayhem. In 
the immediate aftermath eight schools which were located in the 
``frozen zone'' were closed, displacing nearly 6,000 students, a number 
which is more than 2\1/2\ times the average school district in the U.S.
  Not only did the faculty and staff in these affected schools react 
with extraordinary calm, grace and bravery to evacuate their schools 
and to ensure that every child in their care was safe and accounted 
for, the students and staff from these heavily impacted schools worked 
together in spite of the fact that over 1,500 students and 800 staff 
members lost a family member or loved one as a result of the disaster. 
Consider these snapshots from one of the most horrific days in our 
history.
  Jordan Schiele, ajunior at Stuyvesant High School, retold his 
experience in a recent article in The Washington Post. Jordan was in 
band class when the first plane hit Tower One. He saw the second hit, 
in the middle of a class debate on the best form of government. From 
the window, he watched what he first thought were fax machines and 
later realized were people falling from the Tower's top floors. As 
Tower One collapsed, the lights in his classroom flickered, the whole 
Stuyvesant building rumbled, and Jordan fled with his classmates out of 
the building and began running north up the West Side Highway, looking 
back as a cloud of dust engulfed his school. ``I'll never forget when 
the dust engulfed Stuyvesant,'' he remembers. ``I felt it was engulfing 
my future, because school is your future at this age.''
  Ada Dolch, Principal at the High School for Leadership and Public 
Service just four blocks from the site of the Twin Towers, made a 
series of decisions that students, staff and parents credit in saving 
innumerable lives. When the first explosion came, Principal Dolch 
looked outside and what she saw made her immediately fear for her 600 
students. She watched in horror as debris rained down on Liberty Plaza 
and waves of frightened people ran into the school lobby for safety. 
She moved her students away from the 6-by-6-foot windows in every 
classroom out into the hallways and told her kids to remain calm. Then 
the second plane hit and Stephen Kam of the New York Police 
Department's Division of School Safety raced into the lobby and said to 
Principal Dolch that it was time to get the students out. Dolch agreed 
and teachers quickly moved students out of the building floor by floor.
  Once outside, they met up with 750 of their peers from the High 
School for Economics and Finance, which is located next door to 
Leadership, and their Principal, Dr. Patrick Burke. Two secretaries 
from Economics, Kathleen Gilson and Joan Truteneff, wanted to stay and 
answer calls from frantic parents but Burke told them ``No way, you 
have to come with me.''
  Right as the students got to Rector Street the first building 
collapsed and a dust ball, full of debris, began to chase them. One 
teacher shouted to her kids, ``Run! Now you can run!'' and they hopped 
over benches as many raced for Battery Park at the tip of lower 
Manhattan while others headed north and east. Once in Battery Park, the 
students hopped on ferries to Jersey City and Staten Island. Nearly 100 
of the students, those who could not make it home that night, were fed 
and spent the night on cots in Curtis High School on Staten Island, 
accompanied by their teachers. Still others were housed and fed by 
parishioners of a Jersey City Catholic Church.
  John O'Sullivan, an earth science teacher at Economic and Finance, 
said that when the first tower fell, he thought they were finished. 
``It was an optical illusion, but it looked like it was falling on 
us,'' said the teacher. ``I'll never forget the look on the face of one 
of my students from last year. The look of terror. It was like that 
picture of the little girl running from the napalm attack in Vietnam,'' 
he said. Other teachers walked students home over the Manhattan Bridge 
to Brooklyn. Mr. O'Sullivan and several of his colleagues walked north 
with a group of students and then caught a bus to O'Sullivan's 
apartment. Once there, the teachers fed pizza and soda to the students 
and put on a video until their parents could pick them up.
  What make Principal Dolch's heroism even more remarkable is that she 
performed all of these acts of bravery while knowing that her sister 
Wendy Wakeford, who worked for an investment banking firm on the 100th 
floor of 1 World Trade Center, was more than likely a victim of the 
attack. Her sister remains missing. ``She was in the first building 
that was hit. I think that she was caught in the fireball. We haven't 
heard from her,'' Dolch said shortly after the attack. ``I prayed she 
was safe, but I had kids to worry about, I knew I had to get them 
out.''
  The teachers at P.S. 234, the Independence School, which is located 
dangerously close to the crash site, had to evacuate 6- and 7-year old 
students during the most harrowing part of the disaster immediately 
after the second Trade Center tower collapsed and enveloped the school 
in a debris-filled cloud. Many of the children were screaming for 
parents who actually worked in the towers. As one teacher stepped into 
the street, a small child saw the burning bodies falling from the 
towers and cried out, ``Look teacher, the birds are on fire!'' Taking 
some students by the hand and carrying others on their shoulders, the 
teachers plunged through the rubble-strewn streets that were clogged 
with adults running for their lives. With their small charges in tow, 
they walked 40 minutes north to the nearest safe school in Greenwich 
Village. Some children whose parents could not come to get them by the 
close of the day went home with their teachers, and stayed with them 
until their mothers or fathers could be reached by phone.
  Mr. Speaker, I salute the New York City Public City School community 
for their courage on September 11, and I ask my fellow

[[Page E2376]]

Members of Congress to join me in recognizing their efforts by 
becoming, a co-sponsor of House Resolution 325, which recognizes the 
courage and professionalism of the entire New York City Public Schools 
community during and after the attack on the World Trade Center on 
Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, as well as supporting Federal assistance 
to the school community.

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