Students in the Career & Technical Institute’s Security & Law class honored the over 400 first responders who died during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the tragedy’s 24th anniversary. Students wore tags with pictures of police officers who died that day while walking over 400 steps on the steps leading down to the Salt Point Center parking lot in memory of them. They stopped periodically for moments of silence, starting at 8:46 a.m. to remember the North Tower of the World Trade Center being struck and the subsequent series of events. “The stairs have significance because the first responders were going up the stairs of the Twin Towers to get the people out,” Instructor Steve Price explained. “We always said we’d never forget.”
This commemoration memorialized the victims and taught students, who were born years after 9/11, about what was lost that day. “Kids in this generation really need to know what happened that day and know what the country went through,” Price said. “It’s another history lesson for them, whereas we all lived it and we just want to pass that experience on to them.”
In addition, all students presented brief reports about the officers whose tags they wore and also interviewed people about their reflections of 9/11 for a separate project.
Second-year student Emani Stackhouse has heard stories from her family about their memories of 9/11 and interviewed them about their experience. She said it is important to commemorate the first responders. “Since we've never done this before, it should keep happening so we remember,” Stackhouse said. “It needed to happen because it did happen so long ago.” Stackhouse wore the tags of Joseph M. Navas and Timothy A. Roy, Sr. and was amazed to learn about their lives. “They dedicated their whole life even before they joined the academy to helping people,” Stackhouse shared. “They were so kind.”
First-year students also walked the steps, minus the stops, remembering the series of events, and had a moment of silence as the name of each police officer who died that day was read.
Jaydenn Miller, a first-year student from Hyde Park, interviewed his aunt as she worked at the World Trade Center but did not come to work that day. He wore a tag of New Jersey State Police officer James W. Parham who died doing what he loved – serving others. “Walking the steps felt good to do knowing that we were honoring people who gave their lives to help others,” Miller said. “We’re starting off the program with something honorable and memorable.”
Resilience Academy and across campus
At the Resilience Academy, Principal Kiesha Tillman, Instructional Coach Jonathan Acker and School Monitor Lydia Monzio shared their experiences of being in New York City on that day with students in the Learning Commons.
Monzio previously worked in the South Tower of the World Trade Center but was late arriving to work that day where she witnessed the first plane hitting the North Tower. “All you felt was a deep buzz that went through your body,” Monzio recalled. “I’m looking forward and I see a wall of smoke coming toward me from the other building and I just ran onto Liberty Street.”
What Monzio saw next was heartbreaking – huge flames, people jumping out of the buildings and the second plane hitting the South Tower which covered her in debris. She took off her shoes and ran to the Brooklyn Bridge where she was asked by a woman named Sylvia if she could help get her to a Long Island Railroad station. “Sylvia was a godsend on that day because she gave me a purpose, something to concentrate on other than what was going on around us,” Monzio said. “We walked, we talked, we held hands, we cried and we slowly made our way across the Brooklyn Bridge.” Once the women made it across the bridge, Sylvia told Monzio she would never forget her and three months later invited Monzio to her home to meet her family.
“They thanked me for saving their mother’s life, when in reality it was she who saved me,” Monzio said of her friend. “This is a story of hope in the face of tragedy and a friendship that will last forever.”
Tillman noted that many people stepped up to help others on 9/11 and encouraged students to do the same when times get tough. “Hopefully you’ll be one of those people that if someone needs help that you won’t look on, you won’t take out a cell phone and take a picture, you’ll actually stand up and help,” Tillman said.
During the Sept. 10 Board of Education meeting, President Ralph R. Chiumento, Jr. led fellow board members and attendees in a moment of silence, while Salt Point Center staff and students did the same the following morning.