Weeks after the attacks, as American Teacher goes to press, rescue workers continued to comb the site of the World Trade Center as hope for signs of life in the demolished towers and adjacent buildings faded. Among the missing are 34 members of the AFT-affiliated New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF), who worked at the WTC. Known with tragic certainty is that three public school students in Washington, D.C., and their teachers, all AFT members, perished when terrorists flew the plane they boarded that morning into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C.

Also certain is that the attacks claimed the lives of many loved ones. A preliminary poll of just one-third of the schools in Staten Island, one of New York's five boroughs, reveals that 28 teachers lost spouses--many of them fire, police and rescue workers who put themselves in harm's way to save others. It is a grief that will be shared by thousands of New Yorkers, including schoolchildren who lost parents, grandparents and other loved ones in the horrendous act.

All of these people will remain in the thoughts and prayers of this 1 million-plus union, which is marshalling an unprecedented relief effort on behalf of the victims.

Also never to be forgotten is the heroism of the communities, and of AFT members in particular. The attack in New York forced the immediate evacuation of 8,000 students in eight Manhattan schools. Thanks to their teachers and other school staff members, not a single child was injured; all made it safely back into the arms of loved ones.

"This has been tough for teachers," says Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers and an AFT vice president. "They're not trained for this as cops and firefighters are. I've had to plead with them to tell their stories.... Instead of speaking about the past, they want life to go forward."

As Francine Cornelius, a teacher and chapter chair at one of the elementary schools closest to the World Trade Center, puts it: "We did what we do every day. We kept [the students] safe...even when ash turned everything black. We're not standing here as heroes but as teachers. This is what we do."
 

The smoke gave some indication.

It rose for weeks from the debris of the World Trade Center following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America, a testament to the tragic, long-term suffering inflicted on the nation and the city by a ruthless enemy. But steel, brick and concrete cannot encompass the deepest of wounds: the loved ones forever lost, the shaken sense of security, the nagging feeling that life may never be the same.

Healing will not come overnight to New York. But it will come. And AFT members working in the city's schools and communities will take a leading role in binding up the city's wounds.

The process is well under way, reports Neil Marks, a social studies teacher and dean of the department at New York's High School for Leadership and Public Service. The theme-based school sits just two short blocks from the World Trade Center complex and was commandeered as a morgue in the aftermath of the attacks, which sent students and staff fleeing to safety in what Marks describes as "an almost biblical scene" of falling debris, ghastly glimpses of death, choking ash and confusion. Staff and students were moved the next week to another nearby high school and were not expected to return to their school for several months.

Public Service staff met at their new location just six days after the attack, laying the groundwork for the students' return three days later. To mark that day, "I wanted to get something from the old school, a talisman, something that the students would be able to recognize and feel good about," says Marks, who is also chapter leader for the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the AFT's preK-12 affiliate in the city.

Marks set off the next day for the old school building, sneaking into the cordoned-off neighborhood by flashing a school ID and talking fast when questioned by security. He was turned back four times before the ruse finally worked, and, with the help of a friend, Marks was able to carry the school's eight-by-four-foot Plexiglas sign out of the building, down Wall Street and into his apartment building.

Marks made sure the sign was there when students gathered for a back-to-school assembly at the new high school. When it was unveiled, "the kids began crying, laughing, cheering--the place went crazy," he remembers. The school assembly spontaneously launched into a heartfelt rendition of "America, the Beautiful."

Building or no building, the Leadership and Public Service community stood tall.

Comfort in routine

As September drew to a close, schools across the city were coaxing the healing process along. Students were encouraged to ask questions about the tragedy, to express their feelings in writing and art, and to share their emotions with school staff and classmates.

Prominent public figures from first lady Laura Bush to New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, made a point of visiting classrooms in the city to field students' questions and concerns.

The UFT and school board jointly developed a set of guidelines to help their students recover from the tragedy and to identify those students who might need intervention. Additional psychologists, counselors and social workers went to the schools on an as-needed basis. School communities also were working to make sure that tolerance and respect for diversity did not become another casualty of Sept. 11. Just days after the attack, the UFT provided teachers with "Helping Students Appreciate and Respect Differences," a compilation of resources to help teachers show students that lashing out at their fellow Americans because they come from a particular ethnic group is no way to deal with pain and anger.

One of the best avenues for healing, Marks says, is a resumption of school routine. Regular classes, homework, lunchroom interaction--the daily fabric of school life--seemed to be a great comfort for many students, the social studies teacher noted. "The kids are really responding well, given the difficult situation we're in. Attendance is really good, and kids are diving into homework like I've never seen before," he reports.

"But you can never really get totally away from it...the kids jolt when they hear planes or sirens. New Yorkers hear sirens all the time. It's normal," Mark says. "Now, conversation just stops dead in its tracks when you hear them."

"What we really look forward to right now is getting back to our buildings," says Francine Cornelius of P.S. 234, one of two elementary schools relocated into nearby P.S. 41 in the days following the attacks. Teachers from P.S. 234 were given 14 rooms at the school and are doubling up classrooms in each of them, Cornelius reports. Even though staffs and students at all three schools have worked hard to create a cordial, supportive school environment for all concerned, the arrangement is challenging and the P.S. 234 community longs for a return to their old building once cleanup and inspection are completed. "It's the single biggest thing" that can help students and staff heal in the aftermath, she stresses.

Daily reminders

Emotional triggers such as sirens are common challenges for all New Yorkers these days, explains psychologist June Feder, state chair of a disaster response network for the AFT-affiliated New York State Psychological Association and a UFT staffer and member. Within hours of the attack, NYSPA's disaster response network fielded calls from hundreds of psychologists and therapists volunteering to provide counseling services at no cost to the families of victims and people throughout the community. The network, in cooperation with the UFT, school board, Red Cross, central labor council and other organizations, has been providing assistance throughout the city.

"There have been many, many losses of union members," Feder says. "We've received hundreds of calls--from families of victims and also from rescue workers performing very stressful jobs. The request for assistance has been overwhelming, but so has the response from our members."

Feder notes that the network also will be available as a resource in schools, working with counselors, social workers and psychologists in the buildings. "It's going to be a long recovery process. Many individuals who have been affected, within a month or two, will tend to put their lives back in some kind of order, some kind of 'ordinariness.' Others, who have experienced intense loss and people who saw the most horrendous things, people jumping out of windows, will take longer."

This month will pose its own particular set of challenges and triggers for New Yorkers to deal with: the two-month anniversary of the attack, which falls on Veterans Day, and the start of the holiday season when Thanksgiving arrives later in the month. Despite the challenges, Feder is confident that the city can work through its pain. "There is a lot of resiliency in people," she says. "The opportunity for these people to talk to folks is there."

A shared tragedy

Many of the issues that New York City schools are dealing with are also affecting schools and staff in the Washington, D.C., area where hijackers succeeded in slamming a commercial jet into the Pentagon. Three Washington, D.C., schoolchildren and three teachers, all members of the Washington Teachers Union, were killed in that Sept. 11 plane crash.

WTU leaders visited the three schools most directly affected by the tragedy on the day after the attacks and report that, along with the pain, there was immense pride in how teachers and school staffs were responding. "All of them are doing what they have to do for the children's sake," says Esther Hankerson, general vice president of the WTU. "Everybody pitched in to try to help the students move through the event."

"It's going to take some time," says WTU president Barbara Bullock, "but I think with the proper support we'll be able to get through."